On 7 November 2023, a month after the Swords of Iron war broke out, the vehicle owner left Israel. He did not return until 12 July 2025. The dates are recorded in an official certificate of the Population and Immigration Authority.
The bank knew. Mizrahi Tefahot Bank confirmed that it held an "economic investigation" and a "background check report" on the vehicle owner. The vehicle owner himself wrote to the bank in April 2024: "I am not in the country". In December 2024 he wrote to the bank's law firm: "I'm abroad since November 2023".
Five days after that message, another file was opened against him. A week later the Execution Office was told that a process server had "met the debtor", handed him the documents, and that the vehicle owner had "refused to sign".
The Execution Office registrar checked and ruled: on that day the vehicle owner was outside Israel. Every proceeding in the file was cancelled.
It did not happen once. This is the story of those reports, of who filed them, and of the question of who profits from them.
In brief
- 2 reports of personal service that Execution Office registrars ruled were made while the vehicle owner was abroad.
- An affidavit on which the pledge file was opened and a receiver appointed without hearing the vehicle owner: the declarant was presented as an employee of the leasing company, and under questioning confirmed that he works for the bank. The attestation says he "appeared before" a lawyer, but by his own account he signed "at my office", with electronic verification.
- A legal fee of NIS 21,456.50 presented as part of the debt after it had been cancelled. The bank's side admitted in writing: "there is no basis".
- The debt: NIS 151,667 in February 2024. NIS 261,374 in September 2026.
Who the parties are
The car loan was granted in 2021 by Igud Leasing. Bank Igud was merged into Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, and the leasing company changed its name to "Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing Ltd.", a subsidiary of the bank. The Execution Office proceedings were run on behalf of the creditor by the law firm Chen Fisher Gabbay. A lawyer from the firm was also appointed receiver of the vehicle.
According to the bank's own letter, on 28 February 2024 the outstanding debt stood at NIS 151,667.59.
The reports, in order
On 1 April 2024 the loan was called for immediate repayment, and NIS 153,026.86 was transferred "for legal handling".
10 June 2024: Yaniv Perlov's affidavit
The pledge file was opened on the strength of an affidavit by Yaniv Perlov. In its first clause he wrote: "I am an employee of Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing Ltd. (hereinafter: 'the creditor')". The affidavit claimed that no warning was needed before calling the debt for repayment, and on that basis a receiver was appointed over the vehicle ex parte, that is, without the vehicle owner knowing and without him being heard.
At the bottom of the affidavit, attorney Victor Fisher attested that on 10 June 2024 "Yaniv Perlov appeared before me" and "signed it before me".
On 13 January 2026 Perlov was summoned for questioning on his affidavit. This is what the transcript records:
"Q. You say you are an employee of a leasing company Ltd. Are you an employee of Mizrahi Tefahot Bank? A. Yes. It is a subsidiary."
And on the signature:
"Q. ... Where did you sign the affidavit? A. At my office. We do electronic signature verification."
In other words, according to his testimony in the transcript: he is not an employee of the creditor but of the bank, and he did not appear before the lawyer who attested that he "appeared before me".
Perlov's signature on the affidavit is visibly different from his signature on the letter of consent filed in the same file two weeks later.
22 December 2024: "met the debtor". The registrar: he was abroad
On 10 December 2024 the vehicle owner wrote to the law firm on WhatsApp: "Hi. I'm abroad since November 2023."
On 15 December 2024 a promissory notes file for NIS 178,075.22 was opened against him. A week later the file was told that a process server had gone to a previous address of his and "during his visit met the debtor", who "received the documents and refused to sign the confirmation of service". On the strength of that report, 31 attachments were imposed, followed later by five restrictions, among them a ban on leaving the country.
On 21 October 2025 the Execution Office registrar ruled:
"As of the date of service of the warning reported by the creditor (22.12.2024), the debtor was outside the borders of State Israel"
and ordered "the cancellation of all the proceedings carried out in the file, and the cancellation of legal fee B that was added to the debt in the file". Counsel for the creditor later told the court: "The applicant was abroad and there is no dispute about that".
21 April 2025: the same report, in the second file. The registrar: he was abroad
Four months later, in the pledge file, the same thing was reported again: the process server "met the addressee", who received the documents "and refused to sign". Again at the same address, and again while the vehicle owner was abroad.
On 13 January 2026 the Execution Office registrar ruled:
"It follows that the debtor was outside the borders of Israel on 21.04.2025. Accordingly, I order the cancellation of the updated date of service of the warning in the file."
7 December 2025: "delivered to the debtor" and also "affixed to the door"
A decision by the registrar in the pledge file was "served", according to the report, at the previous address. The server's affidavit ticked two options that cannot both be true: "delivered to the debtor" and also "affixed to the door after 3 visits". On the strength of that service, the receiver asked for a bench warrant against the vehicle owner, and got it. On that same day, 7 December 2025, the vehicle owner's registered address was already in Netanya. The warrant was cancelled in January 2026.
2025 and 2026: the bank itself opens a file, and more service
After the vehicle owner returned to Israel, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank itself opened another file against him, a claim for a fixed sum. In this file too, every service was reported at the old address.
The warning before filing for execution (27 October 2025). The law requires a warning to be sent before a claim for a fixed sum is filed with the Execution Office. The bank's counsel's warning letter of 31 August 2025 was sent to an address in a locality that appears in no other document as the vehicle owner's address. On the confirmation of service, the printed address was struck through, and his old address was handwritten above it. There, according to the report, the letter was affixed to the door after three visits at which "no one was found at home". The vehicle owner declares that the letter was never delivered to him by registered mail, by personal service or in any other way.
The summons (23 April 2026). The server's affidavit ticked "delivered but refused to sign", meaning that the vehicle owner met the server and refused. The "details of the event" field in the affidavit was left blank. The vehicle owner's registered address had by then been in Netanya for four and a half months. "I did not meet any process server, I did not refuse to accept a document and I did not refuse to sign it," he declared. According to him, this summons led to an attachment being imposed on him in July 2026.
22 July 2026: NIS 21,456.50 with no basis
The receiver filed a report in the pledge file, including a ledger statement from Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing. On the last line: "legal fee B" of NIS 21,456.50, and a balance of NIS 201,084.08. The very same legal fee had been cancelled by the registrar's decision nine months earlier.
When the vehicle owner pointed this out, the creditor and the receiver replied in writing: the item "resulted solely from a technical gap in updating the bank's systems", and "there is no basis for the legal fee B item in the debt". A corrected ledger statement was filed.
More reports, in brief
| Date | What was reported or written | What the documents show |
|---|---|---|
| 28.02.2024 | Warning letter, "despite repeated warnings that were sent to you" | The address has no street name; there is no proof of mailing and not a single "repeated warning" |
| 19.07.2025 | Affidavit of a lawyer from the creditor's firm, attested "on 19/07/2025" | Describes a phone call "on 16/10/25", three months after the attestation |
| 08.06.2026 | The receiver's affidavit was attested | Attached to a report whose ledger statement was generated on 22.07.2026 |
The money: why the size of the debt matters
There are two separate financial mechanisms in this debt. The first can be calculated. The second remains a question.
The first: legal fees grow with the debt. Under the Israel Bar Association tariff, the legal fee in a pledge file is 5% of the debt at opening plus another 5% for managing the file, and in a promissory notes file it is derived from the adjudicated debt. Every shekel added to the debt increases the legal fees. The second legal fee depends on the warning having been lawfully served. When the service was cancelled, so was the fee. In the promissory notes file alone, legal fees now come to NIS 37,328.23.
The second: the bank's books. Under the policy Mizrahi Tefahot publishes in its financial statements, a loan to an individual that is 150 days in arrears is written off for accounting purposes. A write-off is not a waiver, and collection continues. Collecting a debt that was written off in the past may be recorded as a recovery and reduce credit loss expenses, and so improve the bank's results. In 2025 the bank collected NIS 388 million from debts written off in previous years. The leasing company alone contributed NIS 89 million to the group's profit in 2024. Write-offs and provisions also have tax consequences. The documents in our possession do not yet make it possible to determine how this loan was classified in the bank's books and for tax purposes.
The timing. The last payment successfully collected from the vehicle owner was on 10 December 2023. From January 2024 the charges bounced. 150 days from then falls at the beginning of June 2024. The pledge file was registered at the Execution Office on 17 June 2024.
Two versions of the principal. The creditor explained the principal of the debt in the promissory notes file once as a difference of NIS 33,026.86 and once as a difference of NIS 23,026.86. The legal fee that reappeared after being cancelled it explained as a "technical gap in updating the bank's systems".
The questions the bank did not answer
The vehicle owner contacted the bank and the leasing company many times, in writing and orally, and received no answers. These are the questions that remain open:
- How were two personal services reported while the vehicle owner was abroad, and who approved the reports?
- Why was a man who testified that he works for the bank presented as an employee of the creditor, and why was it attested that he "appeared before" a lawyer when he signed at his own office?
- Why did a legal fee cancelled by a registrar's decision reappear in the ledger statement?
- What is the principal of the debt today, without legal fees, interest and expenses, and why are there two versions of it?
- Was the loan written off for accounting purposes, when, and for what amount?
It has happened before: the Bank of Israel, the courts and the State Comptroller
Bank of Israel, 2023. The Supervisor of Banks imposed a financial sanction of NIS 700,000 on Mizrahi Tefahot Bank because it failed to report to the Execution Office payments it had received, or reported them late. The Supervisor wrote that this "may lead to a misleading presentation of the debt" and "could impose excessive debts on the debtor", and that this was not an isolated breach but "a cross-cutting phenomenon".
Class action, 2021. A settlement in two class actions against Mizrahi Tefahot provided that in open files the debt balance at the Execution Office would be reduced to match the balance in the bank's books.
A similar case at another bank. An Execution Office registrar cancelled the restrictions and the other proceedings in a Discount Bank file, where the warning had been affixed at an old apartment while the debtor was living abroad and the bank knew it. The registrar ruled that the bank "misled the registrar" and that "a bank is expected" to act "with a heightened duty of good faith".
Criminal. A private investigator who forged affidavits of service in Execution Office files was sentenced to 10 months in prison. The court noted that such affidavits mislead the tribunal into believing that the debtor knew and chose not to defend himself.
State Comptroller, 2016. Files were opened without proper confirmations of service, and in one of them the bank was credited with a legal fee of about NIS 57,000 on a debt inflated by incorrect interest.
The bill on the table
In February 2024 the bank wrote that the debt was NIS 151,667. By September 2026 it had reached NIS 261,374. In the meantime, services were cancelled, proceedings were cancelled, a legal fee was cancelled, and a cancelled item reappeared in the ledger statement. One question remains, and the bank can answer it in numbers: how much of the NIS 261 thousand is the loan, and how much was created along the way.
About this article: The article is based on the case documents: decisions of the Execution Office registrars, the transcript of the hearing of 13 January 2026, affidavits and confirmations of service filed by the bank's side, Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing ledger statements, the bank's letters and the Population Authority certificate. Quotations are given verbatim, including the term "the debtor" in the original documents. File numbers and identifying details have been omitted, and the documents shown have been redacted. Information about the bank is taken from its financial statements and from Bank of Israel publications. The article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence on the basis of the documents, and was reviewed and approved by the vehicle owner. This English version is an AI-assisted translation of the original Hebrew article; the quotations were translated from Hebrew. The Hebrew version is the controlling text.