Represented in Your Absence
You do not have to be in Israel to buy properly in Israel.
You do have to be represented by someone who is.
Altitude Privé conducts complete remote purchases for buyers in London, New York, Toronto, Melbourne and Johannesburg — from the first brief to the day the title is registered in your name. Attended viewings, filmed. Contracts read and argued in Hebrew by our own counsel. Signature under a power of attorney drawn to do one thing and nothing else.
No 01 — The Viewing Trip
Four days is not diligence. It is a deadline.
The customary approach is to fly in for a long weekend and see everything. It fails for a reason that has nothing to do with effort.
A viewing trip compresses the two decisions that ought to be furthest apart — where do we want to live and which apartment do we buy — into the same seventy-two hours. It puts the buyer in front of a sales office with a flight home on Sunday, which is precisely the condition under which developers' terms are accepted without amendment. And it produces a decision made from a hotel, on a Wednesday in March, about a street the buyer has stood on exactly once.
Buying from abroad removes the deadline. The brief is set in writing. Buildings are assessed as they come to the register, over months rather than hours. Nothing is signed because a plane leaves.
We will still recommend a trip, and we will help plan one. We simply decline to make it the point at which everything is decided.
No 02 — In Your Place
Standing in the room, on your side of it.
We attend as your representative, and we are announced as such. What follows is not a marketing film.
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The visit, attended and filmed.
The actual floor and aspect where these can be reached, the direction of the sun at the hour we are standing there, the noise, the approach from the street, the parking, the school run in real traffic, and the plot opposite with the planning position on it.
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The building assessed, not admired.
The developer's delivery record on completed schemes. The accompanying bank and what that tells you. The planning file, including what is permitted to rise alongside. The floor-by-floor pricing, and whether the premium asked for a view is a premium for a view that survives.
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Live viewings, at your hour.
Walk-throughs by video call at a time that works in your timezone, with you asking the questions and us pointing the camera. Any room, again, from any angle, for as long as you want. Recorded, so you can watch it a third time at the weekend.
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Second opinions arranged.
An independent surveyor or engineer where the building warrants one — instructed by you, reporting to you, and not to us.
No 03 — Power of Attorney
The instrument that makes this possible, and the one most often abused.
An Israeli property transaction can be executed in your absence under a notarial power of attorney. This is ordinary, lawful, and used every day. It is also the single document on which a remote buyer is most exposed.
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How it is properly executed.
Signed before a notary — at an Israeli consulate, or before a local notary with an apostille under the Hague Convention and a certified Hebrew translation. We prepare the wording, tell you exactly which office to attend in your city, and confirm the form is correct before you go to sign it, not after.
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How it is properly drafted.
Ours is limited: to a named transaction, to specified acts, for a defined period, with your prior written approval required before signature of the contract itself. It permits the purchase to be completed. It permits nothing else, and it expires.
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Where you sign yourself.
Some documents are better executed by you directly, and some banks will insist on it. Where that is the case we arrange consular or courier signature and build the days into the timetable rather than discovering them at the deadline.
What we will not have you sign
The developer's own form.
Developers and their lawyers frequently offer a power of attorney of their own drafting, presented as a formality to keep the file moving. These are drawn for the developer's convenience and are routinely broader than the buyer imagines. We do not accept them, and we would advise you to sign nothing of the kind — including for another office.
The test: read the scope clause. If you cannot state in one sentence what the document permits and when it stops permitting it, do not sign it.
No 04 — Money, From There to Here
The most expensive mistakes in this market are banking mistakes.
Where it is protected
The accompanying account.
In an off-plan purchase your payments are secured by law — provided they are made into the project's accompanying-bank account, against the correct voucher (shovar). Every payment we call is against a voucher, and checked before it is sent.
Where it is not
Everywhere else.
Money paid to a developer's general account, to a company account that is not the accompanying account, or to any destination offered for convenience may sit outside that guarantee entirely. It is the costliest error made by foreign buyers here, and it is almost always made in good faith.
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Compliance, prepared before it is demanded.
An Israeli bank receiving a substantial transfer from abroad will require documented source of funds, and will hold the money until satisfied. We prepare that file at the beginning, in the format Israeli compliance departments accept, so the first payment clears on time rather than sitting in suspense while a milestone falls due.
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Accounts, transfers and currency.
Whether you need an Israeli account at all depends on how you are buying; where you do, we arrange the introduction. Currency conversion is a real cost across a three-year staged payment schedule, and rewards being structured deliberately rather than accepted at whatever the transferring bank quotes on the day.
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Tax, declared on time.
Purchase tax (mas rechisha) is declared within the statutory window from signature, and the rate depends on your circumstances — including whether the reduced rate available to olim applies to you, and whether your timing falls inside it. Decided before you sign, not after: for some families that difference is worth more than any discount available on the price.
Never on a verbal instruction. Never on a revised set of bank details arriving by email — that particular fraud is common enough in international property to deserve naming.
No 05 — The Years In Between
An off-plan purchase is not an event. It is a custody.
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Construction monitored.
Progress reported against the contractual programme, with photographs, so that "on schedule" is something you can see rather than something you are told.
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Milestones checked before they are paid.
A payment demand arrives when a stage is complete. We verify it is complete. Not every demand that arrives is due.
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Delay documented as it happens.
Delay is normal in this market. Compensation exists — but only within the framework your contract sets out, and only if the record was kept contemporaneously. Ours is.
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Changes handled in writing.
Specification variations, upgrade orders and any deviation from the mifrat are recorded, priced and approved by you before they proceed.
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One advisor, the whole way.
The person who took your brief is the person who calls you when the building runs six months late. Nothing is handed down.
No 06 — Handover, and After
The keys, and everything that follows the keys.
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Inspection before acceptance.
Handover (mesira) is attended on your behalf with an independent inspector (bodek bayit). The defect schedule is served within the contractual window and the remediation pursued to completion — the point at which most remote purchases are quietly abandoned by the people who arranged them.
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Registration.
The warning note (he'arat azhara) at the outset; full registration in your name at Tabu, the Israel Land Authority or the company registrar as the scheme requires, once the developer has completed parcellation. We tell you where your file stands until it is done.
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The practical life of the property.
Utilities, arnona, the building committee, insurance, and — where you are not yet moving in — letting and management through the sister offices. A home standing empty three thousand miles away needs somebody whose telephone number is local.
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The relationship, afterwards.
A file does not close at registration. The office remains reachable for the questions that arrive in year two — a service charge dispute, a tenancy, a second purchase — from the same advisor who bought the first.
No 07 — A Distinction
Represented remotely is not the same as bought blind.
We do not conduct a purchase for a buyer who has seen only photographs, and we do not treat a signature as a substitute for a decision.
Before you commit, you will have seen the building, the floor, the street at different hours, the approach, the outlook and the planning position behind it — through our eyes and our camera, live and on your questions. You will have had the contract explained clause by clause in English, and amended in Hebrew. You will have approved the final terms in writing.
If, at the end of that, you would rather come and stand in the room yourself, we will say so first.
In Confidence
Begin from where you are.
Tell us what you are considering and where you are considering it from. If a remote purchase is the right structure, we will set out how it would run, what it would cost, and what we would need from you and when. If you would be better served waiting until you are in the country, we will tell you that instead.
- Israel · Direct
- +972 54 504 9446
- United Kingdom
- 0208 191 2172
- United States
- (833) 699-1490
Written enquiries are read personally and answered within one working day.
Altitude Privé is a buyer’s agent for purchasers of new and off-plan residential property across Israel. Licensed brokerage, licence no. 326165. Correspondence is welcomed in confidence.
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A quiet conversation, at the time and place that suits you. We come to you where we can.
Altitude Privé acts for buyers across Israel — from Ramat Beit Shemesh to the Sharon, from Netanya to Jerusalem. One office, one side of the table.
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