Court-appointed expert

The term party-appointed expert is often confused with court-appointed expert. That is why in this article we will try to explain what a court-appointed expert is and what difference there is from a party-appointed expert. Each party to the proceedings can and should submit its own report, drawn up and ratified by an expert who, through their knowledge (technical, scientific, artistic or practical), seeks to assess the facts in dispute in the case (article 335 of the LEC). In claims for construction defects, the expert is usually an architect or quantity surveyor, but depending on the nature of the claim they may be from any field: an accountant, a property valuer, a doctor, etc… That expert hired by the claimants, or by the defendants, is party-appointed, and generally tends to take their own side, blaming other parties and clearing whoever has hired them.

However, each party (or all of them) may also ask the Court to appoint an impartial expert, (with the same qualifications as the other experts) who can shed light where there is doubt and give their conclusions on the same matter. That is the court-appointed expert.

These experts are neither better nor, at times, more impartial. They are not a body of civil servants within the Administration of Justice holding a particular position. These experts are simply professionals registered on a list kept by their respective Professional Associations, and at the beginning of each year they are selected in a set order so that they can act (article 341 of the LEC). Although they are presumed to be impartial. They usually ask for substantial advance payments on account from whoever requests the court-appointed expert report, which can be recovered if there is a favourable ruling on legal costs. Even if an expert, a technician in this case, has carried out the work of a court-appointed expert, they do not acquire that status permanently; they have simply been the court-appointed expert in those proceedings.

The problem is sometimes professional protectionism in certain fields: the court-appointed expert selected (a chartered architect, for example), being after all a fellow professional of the defendant (also an architect), is hardly going to blame their colleague for having drawn up a design incorrectly or having carried out their work negligently. That is why we usually reserve requests for a court-appointed expert for certain cases only.

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