Form 4 in Israel (Teudat Gmar): Occupancy Certificate, Not a Permit

English pages call the occupancy paper Form 4. The Planning and Building Law names an approving-authority certificate, and teudat gmar is that certificate after the building is fit for use. Electricity, water and telephone may not connect a building without it. A typical second-hand flat already on the grid is not waiting on this paper. We invent no municipal fee.

The statute does not print the words Form 4

English-language pages call the occupancy paper Form 4 (טופס 4). The Planning and Building Law names an approval from the approving authority. Teudat gmar is that approval after the authority is satisfied that s.157א(e1) is met. The statute does not print the words Form 4. The Act-text name is completion certificate — the Act-text name for the s.157א approval given after subsection (e1) is met (תעודת גמר). A completion certificate (teudat gmar) is an approval the approving authority gave under s.157א after being satisfied that subsection (e1) of that section is met. The paper the utilities actually ask for is approval from the approving authority (אישור מאת הרשות המאשרת). The approving authority is the chair of a local committee together with the committee engineer, or the chair of a subcommittee under s.18 together with the local-committee engineer. That pair is the approving authority (הרשות המאשרת). It is not the seller, the broker, or the lawyer. The July 2026 citywide median asking ₪4,850,000 (≈ $1,310,811 / €1,212,500 / £1,021,053; n = 1,037 tracked active listings) is the stake that file is about. Implied size — that median divided by apartment-scale ₪/sqm (n = 987) — is 88 sqm (950 sqft). It is not a Form 4 invoice.

Electricity, water and telephone may not connect without it

Section 157א is titled limitation on supply of electricity, water and telephone. Supply of electricity, in this section, means connecting a building to the electricity network for the first time. The company shall not begin work to supply electricity to a building, and shall not supply electricity for construction work, until the electricity applicant has produced an approval from the approving authority or a building permit. The company shall not supply electricity to a building until the electricity applicant has produced an approval from the approving authority. The telephone administrator shall not install a telephone in a new building until the connection applicant has produced an approval from the approving authority. A water supplier shall not supply water to land for work that requires a permit until the applicant has produced an approval from the approving authority. A water supplier shall not supply water to a building — other than for that permit-required work — until the applicant has produced an approval from the approving authority. The approving authority shall give the approvals in subsections (b), (c) and (d) if a s.145 permit was given for the works for which the electricity, water or telephone connection is sought, or in which the building seeking the connection was built, as the case may be. A developer new-build that has never been on the grid is that first-connection cell. A typical private second-hand sale of a flat that already has electricity, water and a line is not.

Fit for use is a later cell; a permit is an earlier one

A building permit is the s.145 cell. The s.157א occupancy certificate is a later approval that utilities may connect. One is not the other. A person shall not do, or begin to do, any of the listed acts except after the local licensing authority has given a permit, and shall do it only in accordance with the permit's conditions. The listed acts include laying out, paving or closing a road; erecting a building, demolishing it and re-erecting it in whole or in part, adding to an existing building, and any repair to it — other than an internal change in a flat. That permit file sits in due diligence next to the 30-day planning-info letter. The approving authority may give an approval under this section if it is satisfied that the building in the request was built in accordance with the building permit, except details that still need completing, which were not finished when the request was filed for reasons the applicant set out, but the building is fit for use even before those details are completed. The Interior Minister shall set in regulations the wording of the request under (e1), shall define what a building fit for use is for this section, and shall set the conditions or guarantees the approval applicant must meet or give so the building is finished in accordance with the permit if the applicant received approval before construction was finished in accordance with the permit. We do not republish that ministerial wording. For a special reason, the authority may give the construction-electricity and construction-water approvals, on conditions it sees fit, even if the building permit the local committee has decided to give has not yet been issued. In the area of a water-and-sewage corporation, the authority shall not give the occupancy-electricity, new-building-telephone, or occupancy-water approvals for a new building until that corporation has confirmed the building is connected to the water system and the sewage system, or that another wastewater solution exists, matching the building's use and purposes and every law. Start-of-work approval is a different cell from the s.157א occupancy certificate. It is the gate to begin the works, not the gate to connect a finished building to electricity, water or telephone. The local-committee engineer shall decide a start-of-work request within five working days of the day it was filed, provided any required control-institute notice was given. If the engineer does not decide in that time, the request is treated as a start-of-work approval after five further working days — provided the required conditions were met.

Keys are possession; this paper is a utility gate

Keys are Sale Law delivery — putting the flat at your disposal. That is possession, not title. Title still finishes at Tabu. A first electricity, water or telephone connection is none of those two moments. A VAT-inclusive dealer sticker is a different statute again. If a Chapter 5 permit was given without the s.145(d)(1) charges being paid and without suitable guarantees for their payment, the authority shall not give the occupancy-electricity and occupancy-water approvals unless those charges were paid or those guarantees were given — provided a breakdown of the charges was given to the approval applicant no later than 15 working days from the day the approval request under this section was filed. That breakdown clock is 15 working days. If a duty of performance control was set for the permit works, the authority shall not give the occupancy-electricity and occupancy-water approvals unless a control institute has confirmed that the performance-control results are in order. A person harmed by a refusal to give an approval under this section, or by an order given under subsection (b), (f) or (h)(2), may appeal to the appeals committee within 15 days of the day they were told of the refusal or the order. The committee shall decide within 30 days of the day the appeal was filed, after giving the approving authority a chance to be heard. Those clocks are 15 and 30 days. They are not a days-to-keys figure and not a days-to-Form-4 tariff.

What our tracked panel can say without inventing a fee

We will not publish a municipal Form 4 bill. There is no official tariff on this disk, and the tracked listing panel has no field for it. What the amenity-flagged panel does record is how often the features that cluster with a newer building appear together. Of 1,028 active tracked listings that carry a yes/no on each flag, the modern package — lift, parking and mamad — asks +17.9% ₪/sqm citywide over listings with none of the three (n_all_three = 377, n_none = 252). That gap is amenity clustering on the feature-premiums page. It is not a Form 4 census, not a pinui-binui premium, and not a days-to-connection clock. Tracked listings are not holdings.

Four cells stay unpublished

A citywide municipal Form 4 fee — no official tariff, no panel field. A days-to-Form-4 statute — s.157א prints appeal and charge-breakdown clocks, not a connection-day count. A share of Tel Aviv sales waiting on this paper — a typical second-hand flat already on the grid is not that first-connection cell; that is a legal if, not a census. The Interior Minister’s request wording and fit-for-use definition — those sit in regulations we did not fetch. If the approving authority sees that construction of a dwelling, commerce, services or industry unit was a deviation from a permit, it may order the company, the telephone administrator or the water supplier to prevent or stop electricity, telephone or water to that unit. That cut-off power is a deviation cell, not a typical resale, and not a TAMA 38 or pinui-binui vote.

Frequently asked questions

Where this fits

This page is the occupancy-certificate citation target. The permit file and the planning-info letter are due diligence. Keys versus title is handover versus Tabu. The two statute stacks are new-build versus second-hand. The dealer sticker is VAT on a new-build. The cluster map is the foreign-buyer guide. Hebrew terms are in the glossary. Live asking figures sit on Tel Aviv property prices. Return to the buying-guide hub.