# The Questions To Ask Before You Buy Off Plan Here > Israeli presale law gives buyers mandatory protections, but only if you verify them before you sign. A diligence checklist grounded in the Sale Law and the Sde Dov project registry. Canonical: https://shavnu.com/blog/questions-before-you-buy --- **Published:** 2026-08-20 **Category:** buying **Reading time:** 10 minutes **Projects covered:** ASHIRA, RAINBOW Tel Aviv, UTOPIA, DIMRI YAMA TLV, ZOHI Tel Aviv, GINDI VOGUE, FIRST by Hagag **Developers covered:** Avisror Moshe & Sons, Israel Canada ## Why a Checklist Matters on a Greenfield Site Sde Dov is almost entirely an off-plan market in August 2026. You are signing a hetel bniya (התחייבות לרכישה, presale commitment) against renderings, a migrash (מגרש, numbered lot) on a former airfield, and a delivery date years ahead. District first occupancy is targeted around 2029. PFAS contamination was disclosed in February 2026. The Environment Ministry demanded a halt to infrastructure works in July 2026. Two Israeli statutes govern your money and your apartment specification. Their provisions are mandatory: they cannot be contracted away except in your favour. The foreign-buyers guide on this site covers tax and mortgage limits for non-residents. This article is the contract-diligence layer: what to ask the developer and your lawyer before any payment above the legal threshold. None of the questions below replace legal advice. They tell you which documents should exist in a compliant sale, and which gaps in the file should slow you down. ## Which Security Is Offered, and In Whose Name The Sale (Apartments) (Assurance of Investments of Apartment Purchasers) Law, 1974, requires the seller to secure your money once payments exceed 7% of the price. The two practically important securities are a bank guarantee (arvut bankit, ערבות בנקאית) issued by the developer's financing bank in your own name, indexed to the Consumer Price Index, valid until a defined release event such as registration of the apartment in your name, and an insurance policy (polisat bituach, פוליסת ביטוח) from an authorised insurer covering the same risk. Other securities exist: a charge, a cautionary note, registration of rights. The scope of protection differs materially between them. Ask your lawyer which instrument your contract uses and whether it covers every shekel above 7%, indexed, in your name, until the release event you expect. Under the lien or caveat route, payments track construction progress. Under the guarantee route, payments generally follow a contractual schedule rather than visible work on site. A buyer can be paying ahead of progress. Know which structure you are in before you celebrate a low launch price. ## Is the Project Bank Accompanied Bank accompaniment (livui bankai, ליווי בנקאי) means the developer finances construction through a bank or large insurer, buyer payments go into a designated project escrow account, and a bank monitor verifies construction progress before releasing funds to the developer. ASHIRA illustrates the pattern on the record: in January 2026, Mizrahi-Tefahot and First International committed more than ₪2.5 billion to finance construction on lot 101. That is not proof every Sde Dov project has the same structure, but it is the counterparty file a lender reviewed before money moved. Ask directly: is this project bank accompanied? If yes, which bank, and is the escrow account named in the contract? If no, what security replaces the escrow discipline, and who monitors construction progress? ## Is There a Payment Voucher Booklet Under a bank-accompanied project, payments should flow through a payment voucher booklet (pinkas shovarim, פנקס שוברים). A guarantee must be issued against each payment. A payment made any other way, for example straight into the developer's own account, may leave the money unprotected. This is not a formality. It is the mechanism that ties your wire transfer to a guarantee line. Before you sign, ask to see the booklet process in writing: who issues each voucher, who signs each guarantee, and what happens if the bank refuses a release because progress is not verified. Some developers begin marketing before the financing structure and guarantees are fully in place. The law then permits only up to 7% as an initial payment, and that 7% is not guaranteed until the construction loan or lien is registered. Many developers hold the 7% in escrow rather than depositing it, but that is practice, not law. Ask where your reservation deposit sits. **Payment protection checklist (Sale Law and bank accompaniment)** | Question | What a good answer looks like | | --- | --- | | Security type? | Named bank guarantee or insurance policy in buyer's name, CPI-indexed | | Bank accompaniment? | Named financing bank, project escrow account in contract | | Payment route? | Pinkas shovarim with guarantee per payment above 7% | | First payment above 7%? | Only after guarantee or registered lien is in place | | Payment schedule type? | Disclosed: milestone-linked (lien) or contractual (guarantee) | _Corpus section 1: Off-plan buyer protection._ ## What Permit Stage Is the Project Actually At An excavation permit, a full building permit (heter bniya, היתר בנייה), and an occupancy permit (tofes 4, טופס 4) are three different things. Marketing copy conflates them constantly. The project registry in this site distinguishes them on purpose. RAINBOW took the district's first excavation-and-shoring permit in March 2024 and a full building permit in October 2025; works moved to execution with Ashtrom in January 2026. ASHIRA received a full building permit in March 2026 after an excavation permit in July 2024. UTOPIA started construction in October 2025; the registry lists works underway with marketing active. DIMRI YAMA is marketing since December 2025. FIRST's design plan was approved in March 2026 while sales ran from July 2025. Ask for the permit number, date, and scope on file at the local committee, not on the brochure. Ask whether the permit covers your building within a multi-phase scheme. A design plan approval is not a full building permit. A full permit is not occupancy. ## What Does the Technical Specification Say The Sale (Apartments) Law, 1973, governs the mandatory technical specification (mifrat, מפרט): finishes, systems, dimensions, and the standards the developer must deliver. It also governs warranty and inspection periods (bedek, בדק) and compensation for late delivery. Request the mifrat annex to the contract and read it beside the showroom sample. Ask which items are fixed by law, which are developer options, and what happens if the delivered unit deviates. The mifrat is not marketing fluff. It is the enforceable baseline. Bedek rights require you to give written notice of a defect within a reasonable time of discovering it. Delay without reason can harm the claim. Know the inspection windows before you accept keys. ## What Is the Stated Delivery Date Every presale contract carries a delivery date or a formula to calculate it. In Sde Dov, district planning targets first occupancy around 2029 with full build-out toward about 2035. Those are plan-level targets, not automatic contract dates. Compare the contract date to the permit stage on the same day you sign. A 2029 keys date on a project with only a design plan in March 2026 is a different risk than the same date on a tower already under construction with a full permit and a named contractor. RAINBOW and ASHIRA are in the second category; a freshly marketed Central plot may still be in the first. Ask whether the date is tied to your building alone or to district infrastructure the developer does not control: Green Line opening toward December 2030 on the northern branch, fifth water line approval in August 2026, pneumatic waste terminal approved in July 2025. Delay in public works can affect livability even when your tower is structurally complete. ## What Is the Compensation Mechanism for Late Delivery Late delivery compensation under the 1973 law is automatic once the contractual date passes the grace period of about a week and a half. It is calculated at 150% of a reasonable rent for a comparable apartment for each month of delay. You do not need to prove developer bad faith for the statutory remedy to start, but you do need to manage notice and documentation correctly. Read the contract's late-delivery clause beside the statute. Some developers add contractual remedies; they cannot reduce below the mandatory floor in your disfavour. Ask your lawyer how rent comparables are defined in practice and whether the contract tries to cap remedies improperly. Separate late delivery from force majeure claims. A ministry halt on infrastructure works in July 2026 is a real district event. Whether it excuses your tower's date is a contract and facts question, not a brochure promise. > Compensation for late delivery is automatic at 150% of reasonable rent per month after the grace period. Verify the contract does not try to shrink that floor. ## Lot, Contamination, and the Migrash Map Your contract should identify the plan lot (migrash number inside TA/4444), not only a marketing name. Lot 101 is ASHIRA. Lot 111 is RAINBOW. Lot 2270 is FIRST. Cross-check the number against tender history so you know which land wave priced the dirt: 2021 Eshkol, 2025 Central, 2025 North, rental, or private Big Bloc. PFAS contamination from firefighting foam was disclosed at district level in February 2026. The corpus names lot 101 as testing clean; it does not publish a plot-by-plot map of dirty lots. An August 2026 buyer lawsuit against Gindi over contamination sits on Central marketing, not on a published cleanup certificate for every migrash. Ask whether soil treatment files exist for your specific lot, not only for the district headline. Absence of a lot-level file is a legitimate answer you may receive. Treat it as risk to price, not as reassurance. ## Who Holds the Contract Counterparty Risk You sign with the developer or its SPV, not with the contractor. Israel Canada holds RAINBOW; Ashtrom holds the build contract for about ₪736 million from January 2026. Avisror holds ASHIRA with bank finance above ₪2.5 billion. Dimri bought lot 107 from the collapsed Hanan Mor Group in July 2024 after Mor's 2021 tender win failed financially. Ask for the selling entity's corporate structure, any parent guarantee, and whether land rights are fully registered to that entity. A tender win in 2025 does not automatically mean a consumer-ready seller in 2026. Several Central and North winners have no project page yet. The seventeen-developers post on this site explains how many names hold land versus how many market apartments. Use it to understand who else is on the field even if they are not your seller. ## Before You Wire: A Short Final Pass Line up the answers in order: security instrument in your name, bank accompaniment and pinkas shovarim, permit stage on file, mifrat annex reviewed by your lawyer, delivery date tested against permits and infrastructure, late-delivery compensation understood, migrash and tender wave identified, lot-level environmental file requested. If any answer is vague, delay the transfer. The 7% threshold exists precisely because marketing can run ahead of guarantees. Sde Dov's prices are high enough that diligence errors are expensive. A ₪11 million average Rainbow deal and a ₪3.75 million Dimri launch entry are both real figures from the record. The law gives you tools to protect the payments that climb toward those totals. Use them before the first voucher, not after a delay notice. --- Source: https://shavnu.com/blog/questions-before-you-buy on Shavnu, an independent English guide to the Sde Dov district in Tel Aviv. Figures come from the public record: Israel Tax Authority transaction reports, Tel Aviv GIS, tender results and the Hebrew press.