This man tried to delay divorce proceedings - it cost him dearly

More than five years of attrition and judicial torture recently came to an end when Judge Idit Ben-Dov Julian from the Petah Tikva Family Court gave the verdict on the divorce process of a couple in Israel.

The judge accepted all the woman's requests without sparing words of criticism from the man for his behavior and ruled that the man must pay hundreds of thousands of shekels to his ex-partner.

The verdict

According to the verdict, in 2017, close to the date of the couple's divorce, the woman filed a claim against the man for the dissolution of sharing and balancing of resources, as well as another claim for child support and division of custody.

About a year later, with the consent of both parties, a judgment was issued regulating the joint custody of the children.

About two years ago, a verdict was also given in the alimony claim, in which it was determined that, among other things, despite the fact that the couple shares equal periods of stay, the woman is the one who alone bears all the expenses of the minors and therefore the man is obliged to pay his children's support.

The property claim continued, as mentioned, until recently.

With the consent of the parties, an order was issued to dissolve the sharing of the couple's apartment and about a year later, a receiver was appointed for its execution when the man's rights to the apartment were sold to the woman.

For the purpose of providing an opinion on the balance of the couple's resources from the date of their marriage to the date of the separation, the court appointed an expert on its behalf.

According to the verdict, during the proceedings, the man did everything to exhaust the woman by dragging out the legal process, while resorting to countless provocations, contempt of court and ignoring judicial decisions.

Husband refused to cooperate

Thus, for two and a half years after the appointment of the expert by the court, the man refused to cooperate with the expert for the purpose of giving his opinion, did not pay his share of the expert's fees and refrained from producing the required documents.

In the meantime, the man submitted, with various excuses, dozens of requests to extend the deadline for submitting the documents and to pay the expert's fees, requests to change representation, requests to delay proceedings, a request to disqualify the expert, and more.

All this did not help him and finally, the expert submitted his conclusions to the court, in which it was determined that the man must pay the woman about NIS 330,000.

However, the saga did not end there. In her ruling, Judge Ben-Dov Julian describes the events in the courtroom during the evidence phase, when the man represented himself after changing lawyers several times.

"As soon as he entered the courtroom, the defendant caused provocations and argued throughout the hearing, insulting the court and making it impossible to conduct a substantive hearing," the judge writes in her ruling.

"The defendant interrupted and shouted throughout the hearing, he entered the courtroom with his partner and refused for her to leave until an explicit decision was made, the defendant entered the hearing with a telephone pointed at the court and refused to answer the question of whether he was taking pictures and recording the hearing despite the law's prohibition."

The judge also states in her ruling that the man sought to disqualify her from discussing the couple's matter while doing so with insulting and defamatory words toward her and his ex-wife.

This request of the man was rejected by the judge after he did not provide any factual reasoning. Finally, the man chose not to submit his summaries to the court, and therefore the judge delivered her verdict based on the material in the case, which reflected the woman's position and the experts' opinions.

The judge ruled that, regarding the balance of resources, she accepts the expert's conclusions as they are, as he gave his opinion on the validity of a verdict.

In addition, the judge accepted the main arguments of the woman and determined that the man must return to the woman half of the amount he withdrew from the joint bank account when the proceedings against him were opened.

He must return to the wife his share of the mortgage payments, which the wife bore alone after the date of the rift between them, and return to the wife his share for repairs in their shared apartment (which was rented) and half the value of the vehicle he is using.

In addition, the judge ordered the man to pay court costs of NIS 40,000. In total, the man was required to pay the woman about NIS 405,000.