A Receiver’s Duty of Candor: The Car Approved for Sale to Someone Who Never Bid

A receiver appointed in Israeli enforcement proceedings sells property that is not his, belonging to a debtor who is not his client, on the registrar’s instructions. That is why he owes good faith and fairness to everyone concerned, the debtor included, and full candor to the registrar: who is really buying, in whose name the property will be registered, and where the money is. The registrar decides on what the receiver puts before her. In US terms, a court-appointed receiver is a fiduciary of the court, not a collection agent.

So a receiver’s affidavit is not a ritual. When he swears the details "were checked", the registrar may rely on it, and the debtor whose property is sold cannot check what he is never shown.

What happened in this case

The car of Sergei Yagudin, a licensed private investigator, was sold at an online auction on 11.10.2026 in Mizrahi Tefahot Leasing’s pledge file 515509-06-24. A car dealer won at 73,500 shekels. The request to approve the sale gave, next to the dealer’s name, an ID number that was not his but his daughter’s. She did not bid and did not sign the sale agreement. The receiver’s affidavit that the details had been checked was attached. ^[1]

On 28.10.2026 the sale was approved "in the absence of an objection by the debtor". That same day Yagudin filed an urgent request for a stay and cancellation. The next day the registrar ordered the receiver to clarify whose number it was and to attach "a copy of the buyer’s identity card" by 2.11.2026. ^[2]

The correction, and what it left out

On 2.11.2026 the receiver wrote that "an error occurred", "due to an error by the handling clerk", and that the daughter’s details "were added as an additional bidder on the same bid". He attached a driving license, not an identity card. The same day a corrected decision was issued that "replaces and cancels" the decision of 29.10, the one that had required the ID. It too says "in the absence of an objection by the debtor". ^[3]

Yagudin argues that the clarification raises more questions than it answers: who added the daughter to the winning bid, when and why, and why the registrar was not told in the original request, when the receiver’s own office had announced "No change of winner’s name after winning the tender!". The full texts are published, redacted, on the investigation site.

The money, and an open VAT question

The decision says "the full price shall be deposited in the execution file". According to the reference the receiver attached, the balance of 66,150 shekels was transferred on 1.11.2026 to a bank account in the receiver’s name, the account named in the sale agreement. No reference was attached for the 10% payment of 7,350 shekels. ^[3]

The sale agreement says the price is "including VAT"; the decision says the price is to be deposited "without the VAT component, insofar as it applies". The buyer is a registered used-car dealer, and Yagudin is a registered VAT dealer too. Who reports the VAT, whether the buyer will get a tax invoice, and whether the receiver’s 6% plus VAT fee is computed on the price with VAT or without it: those questions we leave to the reader.

Why this is not a technicality

A forced sale is the moment the state takes property from one person and hands it to another. What justifies it is a process in which every step is visible and checked. An ID error found only because the debtor noticed it, and a correction that again records that the debtor did not object, turn the check into a formality. American lawyers have a name for the rule at stake: the duty of candor. An officer of the court may not tell it half a story.

Artificial intelligence assisted in drafting this text. The content was checked and approved before publication. Nothing here is legal advice.