A Nesach Tabu is the official ownership extract from Israel’s state Land Registry (Tabu), under the Ministry of Justice. It names the registered owners and lists every encumbrance on the property: mortgages, liens, court attachments, warning notes, easements and restrictions. An Ishur Zchuyot (certificate of rights) does the same job when the property is not yet registered in Tabu, but it is issued by a housing company or developer (chevra meshakenet) from private records, so it costs more and takes longer to obtain. You need whichever document matches your property’s registration regime, and it must be a fresh copy. A buyer’s lawyer, and any mortgage bank, will reject a stale extract because it does not reflect today’s liens. A Tabu extract can be pulled online and the state fee is nominal, roughly NIS 75 to 150 per document. The certificate of rights must be requested from the company that holds your file.
If you are about to list and someone asks for “the Tabu,” you may not be sure what you actually have, whether it is current, or what the lines on it mean. This page explains both documents in plain terms, walks through what each line shows, and tells you how to spot a registration problem before a buyer’s lawyer finds it for you.
Two documents, one job: proving who owns the property
Both documents answer the same question: who holds the rights, and what is sitting on those rights. Which one applies depends on how your property is registered. Israeli residential property sits in one of three regimes, and the regime decides your proof of ownership. For the full comparison of the three, see Tabu vs Rami vs Chevra Meshakenet; here is the short version as it affects your paperwork.
- Full ownership registered in Tabu (baalut). Your proof is a Nesach Tabu, the state Land Registry extract. It is public, fast and cheap to obtain.
- Property not yet registered in Tabu (chevra meshakenet). Common in newer buildings where condominium registration is not finished. Your proof is an Ishur Zchuyot from the housing company holding your file. Records are private, so only the company and the owner can pull them, and it is slower and pricier than a Tabu extract.
- Israel Land Authority leasehold (chachira). About 93% of land in Israel is state-owned and leased, often on 49-year leases that renew for another 49. Selling needs the Land Authority’s consent to transfer the lease, and your rights may show through the Tabu extract or through Land Authority records depending on the file.
So a Nesach Tabu and an Ishur Zchuyot are not two versions of the same paper. They are the matching proof for two different registration states. A property that is already in Tabu has no certificate of rights; a property still with a housing company has no Nesach Tabu yet. Knowing which one you are dealing with is the first due-diligence step in any sale. It feeds straight into your seller document checklist.
When each document is needed
You need a current ownership document at the moment you start selling, not at closing. The buyer’s lawyer asks for it before drafting the contract, because the whole contract is built around what the extract shows. You need it again, fresh, near the contract date, because liens and notes can appear in the weeks between. And a buyer’s mortgage bank will demand its own current copy before releasing funds.
- Nesach Tabu: needed when your property is registered in Tabu. Pull one before listing, then a fresh one within days of signing. Order new copies cheaply and often, because they are cheap and they go out of date.
- Ishur Zchuyot: needed when your property is still with a housing company. Request it early, because it takes longer to come back. If you wait until a buyer is in hand, the company’s turnaround can stall your timeline.
Reading a Nesach Tabu line by line
A Nesach Tabu packs the whole legal status of the property into a few labelled sections. Read it top to bottom and you can see exactly what a buyer’s lawyer will see. Here is what each part shows and why it matters to you as the seller.
| Section on the extract | What it shows | Why it matters to the seller |
|---|---|---|
| Property identifiers (gush, helka, tat-helka) | The block, parcel and sub-parcel numbers that uniquely identify the unit | These must match your contract and any surveyor map exactly; a mismatch stalls registration |
| Registered owners | The legal owner names and their share of the rights | Everyone listed must sign or grant a valid power of attorney; a missing co-owner kills the deal |
| Mortgages (mashkanta) | Bank charges securing a loan against the property | You must discharge these before the buyer can register clean title |
| Liens and attachments (shibud, ikul) | Creditor charges and court-ordered attachments freezing a sale | Each must be paid and formally removed before transfer; an ikul blocks the sale entirely |
| Warning notes (he’arat azhara) | A registered note that the owner has undertaken a transaction | An old note from a prior deal that never completed must be cleared, or it blocks your sale |
| Easements and rights of way (zchut maavar) | Rights others hold over the property, such as a neighbour’s access | You must disclose these; a buyer can walk if a right of way surprises them |
| Restrictions and condominium notes | Bylaw notes, attached units, and use limits recorded against the parcel | Parking, storage and balcony attachments must be confirmed here, not assumed from the listing |
Owner names: every name on the line has to sign
The owners section is where most sales quietly break. The names on the extract are the only people who can legally sell. If the property is co-owned, every co-owner signs or gives a notarized power of attorney. If an owner has died, the heirs cannot sign until the estate is sorted, which is a separate process covered in selling inherited property in Israel. If an owner is abroad, you need an authenticated power of attorney, explained in power of attorney for selling.
Mortgages, liens and warning notes: the encumbrance lines
Everything in the encumbrance lines has to come off before the buyer can register ownership. A buyer cannot record clean title while a charge sits on the property. A mortgage is cleared by getting a payoff statement from your bank and discharging the loan, usually with the buyer’s money routed straight to your lender. A lien is cleared by paying the underlying debt and obtaining a confirmation of removal (ishur hasarat shibud), then registering that removal, which can take 30 days or more across the Land Registry and the Lien Registrar. A court attachment (ikul) must be released through the court first. The mechanics of all of these are in liens and warning notes for sellers and the bank steps are in paying off your mortgage when selling.
A warning note deserves its own caution. During your sale, the buyer’s lawyer will register a new he’arat azhara to protect the buyer between signing and final registration; that one is normal and expected. The problem is an old warning note from a deal that never closed. It will sit on your extract and quietly block a new transaction until it is formally removed. Find it now, not at closing.
How to spot a registration problem before a buyer does
Most registration problems are visible on the extract itself if you know what you are comparing. Run these checks the day you pull your document, while you still have time to fix things without holding a buyer hostage.
- Match the identifiers. Confirm the gush, helka and tat-helka on the extract match your old purchase contract and any surveyor map. A house or villa on its own plot should also match a surveyor’s measurement (mapa modedet) against the registered area. A boundary or area discrepancy is the seller’s to fix; see checking the property before selling.
- Count the owners. Every owner on the extract must be available to sign or grant a power of attorney. A deceased, divorced or absent co-owner is the single most common reason a sale collapses late.
- List the encumbrances. Write down every mortgage, lien, attachment and warning note. For each one, know who imposed it and exactly how it comes off. Budget the 30-plus days that lien removal can take.
- Reconcile the physical apartment with the registered plan. An enclosed balcony, an extra room or a converted storeroom that does not appear on the approved plan is unpermitted construction, which can carry demolition exposure and shrink a buyer’s mortgage. See building permits and illegal construction.
- Confirm the attachments. Parking, storage (machsan), roof or garden areas are “attached” (tzamud) units in the condominium registration. Confirm they are actually registered to your unit, do not assume they are because the listing says so.
Why an old document is not enough
An old Nesach Tabu is worthless for a live sale because the extract is only a snapshot of one day. A lien, a tax attachment or a fresh warning note can be registered the week after you printed it, and none of that shows on your old copy. This is exactly why a buyer’s lawyer and any mortgage bank insist on a current extract pulled close to the contract date, and why a careful buyer pulls one again immediately before final registration. Treat a Tabu extract like a bank balance, not a birth certificate: it is true only on the date it was issued.
My own estimate of why fresh copies are a bargain. Using the fact-bank state fee of roughly NIS 75 to 150 per Tabu extract, pulling three copies across a sale (at listing, at signing, before registration) costs about NIS 225 to 450 in total. Set that against a customary agent commission of about 2% plus 18% VAT, or about 2.36% effective. On a NIS 2,000,000 apartment that commission is roughly NIS 47,200. So three fresh extracts cost on the order of 0.5% to 1.0% of a single agent commission, and they are the cheapest insurance in the whole deal against a last-minute title surprise. Basis: my arithmetic on the NIS 75 to 150 extract fee and the 2.36% effective commission figure from the fact bank.
What to do if the property is not in Tabu
If your property is not registered in Tabu, your proof of ownership is the Ishur Zchuyot, and the sale runs through the housing company instead of straight through the Land Registry. This is normal for newer buildings where the condominium registration (parcellation) is not finished, and for some Israel Land Authority leasehold files. It changes three things for you as the seller.
- Start earlier. The company’s records are private and slower to retrieve, and transferring rights needs the company’s approval and extra documentation. Request your certificate of rights well before you have a buyer.
- Expect extra consents. A chevra meshakenet transfer needs the company’s sign-off; an Israel Land Authority leasehold needs the Authority’s consent and can carry transfer fees. Build these into your seller timeline.
- Pre-completion is different again. If you bought off-plan and the building is not finished, you are selling by assignment of rights (havaat zchuyot) and may need the consent of both the developer and the construction-financing bank, plus a transfer of your purchaser guarantee to the new buyer. That path is covered in selling new development before completion.
Where a property is still with a company, ask the company directly what it needs from you and how long an Ishur Zchuyot and a rights transfer take. The eventual goal is full Tabu registration in the buyer’s name, but until that happens the company file is the source of truth, and a careful buyer’s lawyer will scrutinise it the way they would a Tabu extract.
How the document fits your sale
Your ownership document is the spine of the legal file. From it flow the clearances you must deliver to transfer title: a Tax Authority clearance confirming capital gains tax (mas shevach) is paid or exempt, and a municipal clearance (ishur iriya) confirming arnona and any betterment levy are paid. Without both, the Land Registry will not record the buyer. The full set of legal steps is mapped in the legal and registration guide for sellers, and the wider process from listing to keys is in how to sell, step by step. For the big picture, start at the main guide to selling property in Israel.
The takeaway is simple. Pull your ownership document the day you decide to sell, read every line, fix what you find while you still have leverage, and refresh the copy near the contract. A clean, current extract is the difference between a sale that closes on schedule and one that stalls at the registry.
