Is It Necessary to Write the Location of the Chometz That is Being Sold?

Rav Ariel Ovadia

Question: Is it necessary to write in the shtar the location of the chometz that is being sold or is it sufficient to write that one is selling his chometz, without specifying where it is? 

Answer: A standard shtar mechiras chometz does say to write one’s address, and many people write exactly where in the house the chometz will be located. Rav Moshe Sternbuch writes that the reason for this is because the chometz that is being sold must be a davar mesuyim, part of this is knowing where it is. Rav Moshe Feinstein writes that it is sufficient to write the address of the home and one does not need to write exactly which cabinet the chometz will be in. 

Practically, Rav Elyashiv writes that l’chatchilah one should list all of the places where the chometz is but if one is more general it also works. 

Question: What if someone lists all of the places where the chometz is but leaves out one location? For example, what if someone owns a bungalow that has chometz in it and forgets to mention it in the shtar? 

Answer: That could happen and the Poskim discuss such cases. The Minchas Yitzchok writes that it will be okay since we know the seller meant to include all locations. Even though he tried to specify, he actually had in mind any place where he has chometz. 

In the standard shtar it states that the chometz is being sold “in these locations and in any other location” in which it could be. So we try to specify to a degree, but we also cover all bases.