Limitation Periods in Civil Claims: How Long You Have to File
Seven years as a rule, 15 or 25 years for land, the exception for minors, and the late discovery rule with its ten-year cap. What starts the clock running.
One of the first questions worth clarifying before planning a civil claim is how long you actually have to file it. The Limitation Law, 5718-1958, sets different time frames for different situations, and missing them can bar a fully justified claim.
The General Rule: Seven Years
In most civil claims, including contract claims and tort claims, the limitation period is seven years from the date the cause of action arose, which is usually the date of the breach or the date of the loss. It is important to understand that limitation is a procedural bar rather than the extinction of the right itself, but in practice, if the other side raises a limitation defense and the court accepts it, the claim is dismissed.
Land: Two Periods, Not One
In claims concerning land the Law sets two different periods, and many people know only one of them. For settled land, meaning land registered following a settlement of title process, the period is 25 years. For unsettled land the period is 15 years. Be precise about the terminology: what matters is whether the land has gone through settlement of title, not the mere fact that it is registered at the Land Registry (Tabu). Assuming that "registered at the Tabu" automatically means 25 years can prove expensive.
Minors: The Clock Does Not Run Until Age 18
Where the potential claimant is a minor, the limitation period does not begin to run until they reach majority. In practice, someone injured as a child has a full seven years starting from their 18th birthday, meaning until the age of 25, even if many years have passed since the event.
When the Loss Comes to Light Later: The Discovery Rule
There are situations in which the loss only comes to light years after the event that caused it. In tort claims concerning damage, the limitation period starts running from the day the damage was discovered, or from the day it could have been discovered with reasonable diligence. But this rule carries a cut-off: as a rule, no claim may be brought once ten years have passed from the date of the event that caused the damage. The discovery rule is not an unlimited safety net, and that is a common mistake.
Why It Is Still Better Not to Wait
Even where there appears to be plenty of time left, a long delay hurts your practical prospects of success: witnesses forget details, documents go missing, and evidence becomes harder to gather. The limitation period is a legal outer limit, not a recommendation about when to act.
FAQ
As a rule, from the day the cause of action arose: the day of the breach or the day the loss occurred. In tort claims concerning damage, time can start running from the day the damage was discovered, or the day it could have been discovered with reasonable diligence, but even then no claim may be brought more than ten years after the date of the event. This can be a complex question, so it is worth examining it on the facts of the particular case.
There are circumstances the Law recognizes as interrupting or suspending the running of time, for example an acknowledgment of the right by the debtor, or a legal impediment to suing. These are specific exceptions rather than a general rule, so they should not be relied on in advance as a substitute for filing on time.
Not in principle. Both are generally subject to a seven-year period. The main difference lies in claims concerning land, where the period is 15 years for unsettled land and 25 years for settled land, and in the discovery rule in damage claims, which is subject to the ten-year cut-off.
If you are dealing with a similar situation and would like to review the specifics of your own case, you are welcome to contact me by phone at 054-4417869 or by email at leon@sverdlov.co.il.
The content of this guide is general information only, intended to explain the legal background in accessible language. It does not constitute legal advice and is not a substitute for individual legal advice that takes the circumstances of the particular case into account. Nothing set out here should be relied upon for the purpose of making decisions or taking action. The law, the case law, the amounts and the deadlines may change from time to time, and every case is judged on its own facts. © All rights in the content of this guide, including its wording, its structure and its editing, are reserved to the Law Office of Leon Sverdlov. The content may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, published, translated or used for commercial purposes, in whole or in part, by any means whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the firm.
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