Preemptive Declarations of Duress

We have stated that a forced sale is valid but the seller has a recourse of being “ moser Modaah ”. What does that mean?

In the last segment, we said that witnesses who sign a Modaah have to know all the details of the situation and must be aware of how the individual is being forced into the transaction, which is why it is not so easy to negate a sale retroactively with a Modaah . What can someone do if he really needs a Modaah but the facts are not so clear to the witnesses?

Yankel is building an extension on his house and he hires a contractor to do the job. They agree that Yankel will pay cost price plus 15%. When the job is 75% completed, the contractor tells Yankel that his costs have gone up and he can only finish the work if they raise his rate to 20%. He says that he will not finish the extension unless they sign a new contract with the new terms. After the job is completed, Yankel comes to bais din with a Modaah that says that he was forced to sign the new contract and never really consented to it. Does he have to pay the contractor 15% or 20%?

We have stated that a Modaah works to negate a transaction. Would it also work to negate only part of a transaction? To give an example: Reuven’s father owned assets in Eretz Yisroel and England. All of the siblings live in Eretz Yisroel, with Reuven being the only one living in England. Accordingly, they decided to split their father’s inheritance by granting Reuven all of the assets in England and having the siblings divide the assets in Eretz Yisroel. For the Israeli Rabbanut to deal with the assets in Israel, they told Reuven that they need him to sign a shtar mechilah that says that he forgoes his rights to all of his father’s assets. Before he does that, he wants to be moser Modaah that he is only forgoing his rights to the assets in Eretz Yisroel and not to the assets in England. Will this Modaah work?