Israeli Mortgage Defaulters Will No Longer Be Thrown Onto the Street

February 11, 2008

The Knesset Constitutional Law Committee has approved new legislation that will prevent mortgage banks from throwing homeowners who have defaulted on their payments out of their dwellings to become homeless. The proposed new law would require banks to ensure that homeowners have alternative rented accommodations before implementing evictions. The first approval clears the way for the law's enactment following its second and third reading in the Knesset in the coming weeks.

The Knesset Committee accepted the arguments of social change organizations in the NIF family including Yedid: The Association for Community Empowerment and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) that throwing families onto the street was not acceptable in humanitarian terms. The Committee rejected the banks’ opposition to the new law and reprimanded them for not providing data about the number of defaulters. The debate took place against the backdrop of the coldest January in Israel for 30 years – and tragedies more common in the U.S., with ten homeless people dying of hypothermia and dozens more hospitalized.