The Law of Preemptive Purchase Rights for a Tenant
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Question
I am renting, and the seller wants to sell the apartment. Do I have the right of preemptive purchase over other buyers or not?
Answer
If there are neighbors who can connect the apartment to their own, they have precedence in purchasing the apartment. If there are no neighbors who wish to buy, you have precedence over other buyers.
Source
Gemara 108. And these are the words: Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav, one who holds between brothers and between partners is brazen, and we do not remove him, but Rav Nachman said, we also remove, and if because of the law of preemptive purchase rights, we do not remove, and in Nehardea they say, even because of the law of preemptive purchase rights, we remove, because it is said: "And you shall do what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord." And so ruled the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, Siman 175, Paragraph 4, like Nehardea: "Sells his land to another, whether he himself, his agent, or the court, his neighbor who is next to his boundary has the right to give money to the buyer and remove him, even if the buyer is a scholar, neighbor, and relative of the seller, and the neighbor is ignorant and far from the seller, the neighbor has precedence and removes the buyer." And the early authorities disagreed whether a house has the law of preemptive purchase rights or only a field. The opinion of R"T in Sefer HaYashar is that there is no law of preemptive purchase rights in a house, because what logic is there for the neighbor to have precedence and buy a house to rent to another, and therefore he should precede another? And furthermore, houses are not as commonly bought as fields. And the Rosh wrote that his reasoning is correct, but it is customary not like his words. And so ruled the Shulchan Aruch in Paragraph 53, that there is a law of preemptive purchase rights in houses. And if one lives in a house next to the apartment offered for sale, he certainly has precedence, as this is the main law of preemptive purchase rights according to Halacha. And the tenant, thus the Shulchan Aruch and the Rema disagreed whether a tenant of a house next to the apartment offered for sale has the law of preemptive purchase rights or not, and there are those who compare the law of the tenant of that house to the tenant of a house next to it, and nevertheless, the reasoning of the law of preemptive purchase rights to precede him, because "And you shall do what is right and good" certainly exists here, and therefore he precedes other buyers, but not the owner of an adjacent house, as he is the main law of preemptive purchase rights.
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