Whoever acts as your expert witness, once the matter reaches court the expert's duty is to the court and not to the client who is paying his fees. This makes it difficult for your surveyor to act as both advocate and expert witness.

In the interests of saving court time and litigants' money, and in line with the new Civil Procedure Rules that came into force in April 1999, the courts will in future appoint a Joint Sole Expert for each case to give expert opinion to the court. It is expected that the expert's evidence will be given in writing and that the expert will not appear in court. This does mean that if you have already taken professional advice from an expert witness and then proceeded to a court case, that same expert witness may well not be appointed by the court that hears your case.

This page was last updated on 22 February 2001

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The information given on this web site is of necessity of a very general nature and cannot be relied upon to meet your specific requirements. Jon Maynard FRICS cannot be held responsible for any action that may or may not be taken by anyone who accesses this site and acts upon any information found within. Whilst I hope that you may gain benefit from the information in this site, my liability can only extend to specific advice given by me after completion of a formal engagement letter.