A new housing project planned in the town of Efrat south of Jerusalem overcame the last major hurdle recently, when Arab claims to the land were exposed as false.

The claim made by an Arab resident of the nearby village of Al-Khader delayed construction of the housing project by more than a year, blocking all work on the neighborhood, which is planned to include 50 homes.

According to an Israel Radio report, a court proved that that the Arab claimant had no basis of ownership, and that the claim on the land was entirely false.

The project was organized by the future residents themselves, who commissioned a contractor to build the 50 homes. Members of the group had already invested vast amounts into the project and the year-long delay caused the prospective homeowners huge amounts of monetary loss.

After the status of the land selected for the project had been carefully checked, the group obtained building permits and work began preparing the plots for construction.

This is when a resident of Al-Khader registered a complaint with authorities claiming ownership of the land. But it turned out, the man’s only claim to the land was a small grove of trees he had planted on a plot he never owned.