Can you collect a debt in Israel with no written contract or IOU?

Israeli law treats a contract as formed by offer and acceptance, not by a signature on paper. Under the Contracts (General Part) Law an agreement can be made orally or even inferred from conduct, and only a few transactions, most notably a sale of land, must be in writing to be valid. A personal loan or an unpaid invoice is therefore fully enforceable even if nothing was ever signed. What changes without documentation is the evidential burden. The creditor must convince the court, on the civil standard of the balance of probabilities, that money was advanced and that repayment was due, and the debtor will often argue the transfer was a gift, a repayment of a different debt, or an investment.

The absence of a signed document also affects procedure. The fast seder din mekutzar (summary procedure), which lets a creditor obtain judgment quickly on a documentary claim such as a check or promissory note, is not available for a purely oral debt, so the claim runs on the ordinary track with a full hearing. To succeed, assemble every trace of the transaction: the bank or wire transfer that moved the money, WhatsApp or email exchanges in which the debtor acknowledges or discusses the debt, witnesses who saw the loan made, and records of any partial payment, which both supports the claim and restarts the seven-year limitation clock. A demand letter should go first, and for smaller sums the Small Claims Court offers a cheaper route. A foreign creditor can pursue the whole process through an Israeli attorney by power of attorney without being in Israel.

From the full guide: Filing a Claim in an Israeli Court

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