Quick Answer: An Israeli succession order (tzav yerusha) or probate order (tzav kiyum tzavaa) is not always the last word. Section 72 of the Inheritance Law, 1965 lets the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs, or the Family Court, amend or revoke an order when a fact or a document that was not before it at the time comes to light. The two most common triggers are a will discovered after an intestacy order, and an heir who was left off. You apply to the same authority that issued the original order, the change is republished for objections, and if anyone contests it the file moves to the Family Court.

Most families treat an Israeli inheritance order as final. Once the Registrar or a court has issued a succession order or a probate order, the banks pay out, the Land Registry transfers title, and everyone moves on. For the ordinary case that finality is a feature, not a bug. The order works in rem, which means it binds the whole world and third parties are entitled to rely on it without investigating what lies behind it. Nobody wants a bank second-guessing a court order before releasing a deceased parent's account.

The difficulty starts when something surfaces after the order is already in hand. A will turns up in a drawer months after the family obtained an order on the assumption there was none. A sibling nobody mentioned, or a child from an earlier marriage living overseas, was quietly left off the list of heirs. A name or an identity number on the order is simply wrong. Section 72 of the Inheritance Law is the route back into an order that has otherwise closed. It is narrower than most people hope, and the reason your new material was not raised the first time matters as much as the material itself. The sections below cover when the door is open, how a technical correction differs from a full revocation, and what the process looks like when you are handling it from outside Israel.

1. Overview

Succession orders and probate orders are granted by the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs (HaRasham l'inyanei yerusha) under the Inheritance Law, 1965, or by the Family Court where a matter is contested or otherwise sent to the court. A succession order names the heirs and their shares where the deceased left no will. A probate order confirms a will and gives it operative force. Either order becomes the document that Israeli banks, the Land Registry (Tabu), the Companies Registrar, and pension funds act on when they release or transfer a deceased person's assets.

Because the order carries that weight, you cannot correct a mistake by informal agreement among the heirs, and you cannot ask a bank to disregard the order because you have now found a will. The order stands until the body that issued it changes it. Section 72 is the statutory key. It authorises the Registrar, or the court, to amend or revoke an order it has already granted, but only on a defined basis: a fact or a claim that was not before it when the order was made. That single condition does most of the work in deciding whether an application will succeed, and the rest of this guide unpacks it.

2. When You Can Amend or Revoke an Order

Section 72 is not a general invitation to reargue an inheritance because an heir is unhappy with the outcome. It reopens an order where new material genuinely changes the picture. In practice the applications that come through the door fall into a handful of recognisable groups:

  • A will found after an intestacy order. The family obtained a succession order believing the deceased died without a will, and a valid will later appears. The succession order is revoked and a probate order for the will is sought instead.
  • A later will supersedes an earlier one. A probate order was granted for one will, and a more recent will is then discovered that revokes it.
  • An heir was omitted. A child from a previous relationship, a sibling, or a relative abroad who should have appeared on the order was left off, whether by oversight or because their existence was unknown.
  • An heir was wrongly included, or shares were miscalculated. Someone was listed who is not in fact an heir, or the fractional shares do not reflect the law or the will.
  • A clerical or identity error. A misspelled name, a wrong identity or passport number, or a transposed figure that makes the order unusable at the bank or the Land Registry.
  • The will is later shown to be invalid. A probated will is found to be forged, or to have been made without capacity or under undue influence, so the probate order can no longer stand.

What unites these is that the order no longer reflects reality, and the reason it does not is information the deciding authority never saw. An heir who simply disagrees with how the law divides an estate has no Section 72 case. An heir who can show the order was built on an incomplete or mistaken foundation does.

In Practice — the will-in-the-drawer case, and the money that has to come back: The most common Section 72 file I open is a diaspora family that obtained a succession order because the parent in Israel "never made a will," and then, clearing out the apartment a year later, finds a handwritten will under Section 19 leaving everything differently. Two things happen. First, we file to revoke the succession order and probate the will, usually in one combined application to the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs. Second, and this is the part that stings, if the estate was already distributed under the intestacy order, an heir who received more than the will gives them has to return the difference. Israeli courts treat that as unjust enrichment, not a favour. I have had a client who had already wired an inheritance share to a sibling abroad and then spent eight months recovering part of it after a will surfaced. Hand any will you find to the Registrar promptly. Section 75 makes delivering a known will a legal duty, and sitting on one is an offence carrying up to three months' imprisonment.

3. Correction, Supplement, or Revocation: Three Different Tracks

People use "amend the order" loosely, but Israeli practice separates three situations that are handled quite differently, and picking the wrong one wastes weeks.

A technical correction deals with a mistake on the face of the order that does not change who inherits or how much: a misspelled surname, a wrong identity number, an obvious arithmetical slip in the shares. This is the lightest track. Where the change is purely clerical and nobody's rights move, the Registrar can often correct it without a full re-publication.

A supplementary order is the right tool when the heirs and the shares are correct but a new asset turns up that the original order did not mention, for example a forgotten bank account or a plot of land discovered years later. Here you do not touch the existing order at all. You apply under Section 71 for a supplementary succession order (tzav yerusha mashlim) that extends the same division to the newly found asset. Choosing a Section 71 supplement over a Section 72 amendment matters, because a supplement does not reopen the heirs' rights and moves faster.

An amendment or revocation under Section 72 is what you need when the substance is wrong: the wrong people are named, an heir is missing, or the entire basis of the order (intestacy versus a will) has changed. This is the track that engages the diligence test in the next section and, if contested, the Family Court.

4. The Section 72(b) Diligence Hurdle

Section 72 draws a sharp line based on why the new material was not raised the first time. Under Section 72(a), where the fact or document genuinely was not before the authority, the Registrar can amend or revoke the order directly. Under Section 72(b), where the applicant knew of the fact or could have discovered it with reasonable diligence and still did not bring it, or delayed unreasonably in coming forward, the Registrar must transfer the application to the Family Court. The court then decides whether justice nonetheless calls for reopening the order.

The distinction is not academic. It decides whether your matter is a straightforward Registrar filing measured in weeks, or a contested court case measured in years. Honest ignorance, a will that truly nobody knew about, an heir whose existence was hidden, points toward Section 72(a). Tactical silence, or a heir who knew about a sibling and left them off the application to secure a larger share, points toward Section 72(b) and hands the court a reason to be sceptical.

In Practice — how the diligence question is really decided: The court is not looking for perfection, it is looking for good faith. When I bring a late Section 72 application, I build the file around a simple story: what my client knew, when they knew it, and why the delay is innocent. A will found while emptying a nursing-home room is innocent. A birth certificate for a half-sibling that arrives from abroad after a paternity process is innocent. What the court punishes is the applicant who plainly knew and stayed quiet. There is no fixed statutory clock on a Section 72 application, but delay is weighed against you, and an unexplained gap of a few years is often fatal once the matter reaches the Family Court under Section 67A. Two practical rules follow. Move as soon as the new fact lands, and be able to prove the date you learned it. A dated email, a courier slip, or a probate file from abroad can be worth more than any legal argument.

5. Who Can Apply and Where

A Section 72 application can be brought by anyone with a legitimate interest in the estate. That includes a named or omitted heir, a beneficiary under a newly found will, an estate administrator, and in some cases a creditor of the estate or of an heir whose share is affected. The Custodian General (HaApotropos HaKlali) is not an applicant in the ordinary case but is served with the application and can intervene, particularly where minors, missing heirs, or absentee and foreign interests are in play.

The forum follows the original order. If the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs granted the order, the amendment application is filed with the Registrar in the relevant district. If the original order was granted by the Family Court, or if an objection is filed against your amendment application, the matter belongs to the Family Court (beit hamishpat l'inyanei mishpacha). The transfer from Registrar to court is automatic once the file becomes contested, under Section 67A, so an amendment that starts as a quiet administrative request can end up as litigation the moment another heir pushes back.

6. The Step-by-Step Process

An amendment or revocation application broadly mirrors the original order procedure, with an emphasis on giving everyone affected a chance to respond:

  • Prepare the application. A written request to amend or revoke, setting out the order, the new fact or document, and why it was not before the authority the first time. It is signed and, where filed by an attorney, accompanied by a power of attorney.
  • Attach the evidence. The later will, the birth or marriage certificate, the foreign death record, or whatever grounds the change. Documents made abroad need an apostille and a certified Hebrew translation.
  • Serve the interested parties. The existing heirs on the order and any newly affected heir are notified, and the Custodian General receives a copy.
  • Publication and the objection window. The application is published so that anyone with an interest can object. Objectors have fourteen days from publication to file, echoing the objection period for an original order under Section 67.
  • Uncontested outcome. If no objection is filed and the Registrar is satisfied, the Registrar issues the amended order, or revokes the old one and issues a fresh order or probate order.
  • Contested outcome. If an objection is filed, or the diligence rule under Section 72(b) applies, the file is transferred to the Family Court, which hears evidence and decides.
  • Act on the corrected order. Once issued, the amended order replaces the old one at the bank, the Land Registry, and any other institution that relied on it, and any distribution already made is adjusted.
In Practice — the republication step foreign heirs underestimate: Clients abroad expect an amendment to be a quick paperwork fix, and are surprised that it is republished and reopened to objection for fourteen days, just like the first order. That window is not a formality. It is the moment a disgruntled heir gets to file an objection (hitnagdut) and drag the whole thing into the Family Court. So before I file, I do the diplomacy: I contact the other heirs, explain the correction, and try to get their written consent attached to the application. An amendment that arrives at the Registrar with every affected heir's signed agreement usually clears the objection period untouched and is issued within a couple of months. An amendment that ambushes the other heirs invites the objection you were hoping to avoid. The Custodian General's copy matters too, because where a minor or an absent heir is involved, that office can and does object on their behalf.

7. Costs and Timeline

The official fees for a Section 72 application are modest. The application fee sits in the region of NIS 500 (2026), broadly in line with the fee for an original order, and a purely technical correction attracts a lower fee. On top of that there is a newspaper publication fee of roughly NIS 130. These figures are set by regulation and updated periodically, so confirm the current amounts on the Ministry of Justice inheritance fee schedule before filing.

Legal fees are the larger variable and depend entirely on whether the matter stays uncontested. A clean, agreed amendment through the Registrar is generally a fixed-fee job in the range of NIS 3,000 to NIS 7,000. Once an objection sends the file to the Family Court, you are in litigation, and costs of NIS 20,000 and upward are realistic, more where there is a contested capacity or forgery claim requiring expert evidence.

In Practice — realistic timelines, uncontested versus fought: An uncontested amendment at the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs runs about six to twelve weeks from filing to the issued order. Most of that is the fourteen-day objection window plus the Registrar's processing queue, which lengthens around the chagim when the offices slow down. A contested amendment is a different animal. Once transferred to the Family Court under Section 67A, expect twelve to thirty-six months, and the upper end where the dispute involves the validity of a will or expert testimony on capacity. The single biggest lever on that timeline is the one I keep coming back to: get the other heirs' consent in writing before you file. It converts a potential multi-year court fight into a clerical amendment, and it is worth spending real effort on even when relations in the family are strained.

8. Special Issues for Foreign Heirs

Amending an order from abroad is entirely workable, and foreign heirs almost always run the process through an Israeli attorney under a power of attorney rather than travelling. A few features of the cross-border case deserve attention. Documents that ground the amendment, a later will executed overseas, a foreign birth certificate proving an omitted child, a death record from another country, must be legalised by apostille under the Hague Convention and accompanied by a certified Hebrew translation before the Registrar will act on them. Building that documentary package is often the slowest part, so start it early.

There is also the practical knock-on for assets. Where the amendment changes who inherits Israeli real estate, the corrected order has to be re-registered at the Land Registry, and any transfer already recorded on the strength of the old order is reversed and re-done, which can carry its own tax and registration consequences. Where a bank has already released funds under the superseded order, the corrected order is the basis on which over-distributed sums are recovered. For the wider mechanics of collecting an Israeli inheritance from overseas, our guide on claiming an Israeli inheritance from abroad works through the documentation and remittance steps in detail. None of this is a reason to avoid amending a flawed order. An order that names the wrong heirs or misses a will is a problem that grows with time, and Section 72 exists precisely so that it can be fixed.

Note: This guide explains the general framework of Section 72 of the Inheritance Law, 1965 and is not a substitute for advice on your own facts. Fee figures, timelines, and procedural details change and vary between districts. Confirm the current position with a qualified Israeli attorney or the Registrar of Inheritance Affairs before acting.