Specialist assisting the expert (sapiteur)

A court-appointed expert must carry out the instruction personally, but cannot know everything. The property valuation expert appointed to quantify the loss of value of a cracked house is not a geotechnical engineer; the one who values a hotel is not an accountant. The law allows the expert to seek help: the expert may take the initiative of obtaining the opinion of another technician, in a speciality different from the expert’s own. That technician is the sapiteur (specialist assisting the expert).

The sapiteur is not a co-expert. The sapiteur does not sign the report, does not answer the parties’ dires (written observations to the expert) and is not appointed by the judge. The sapiteur gives a technical opinion which the expert integrates into the expert’s own reasoning, under the expert’s responsibility. The sapiteur’s fees form part of the costs of the appraisal and must be announced to the parties.

Where the rule comes from

Article 278 of the French Code of Civil Procedure provides that the expert may take the initiative of obtaining the opinion of another technician, but only in a speciality different from the expert’s own. This limit follows from article 233, under which the technician, invested with powers by the judge on account of their qualification, must personally perform the instruction entrusted to them: the core of the work cannot be delegated. The Charte de l’expertise en évaluation immobilière (the French property valuation charter, Title II, § 9.1) specifies, for private instructions, that the use of third-party experts must be mentioned in the contract.

In a valuation report

I inform the parties of my intention to consult a sapiteur, state the speciality and the foreseeable cost, and ask for an additional advance on costs if necessary. I attach the sapiteur’s opinion as an appendix to the report and explain how I use it: the cost of remedial works quantified by a structural engineer becomes an input for the loss of value; the accounting analysis of a chartered accountant feeds into the valuation of the business. I remain solely responsible for the conclusion, and it is to me that the parties’ observations are addressed, including those on the sapiteur’s opinion.

Example

A property valuation expert is instructed to quantify the loss suffered by the owner of a house whose foundations have been affected by neighbouring works. The expert obtains the opinion of a geotechnical engineer as sapiteur, who concludes that underpinning works of €42,000 are needed and that the residual risk after the works is low. On that basis, the expert values the house without the defect at €350,000, the residual loss of value after the works at 5 %, that is €17,500, and the loss of enjoyment during four months of works at €3,600.

Not to be confused with

The co-expert, appointed by the judge where several specialities are needed from the outset (article 264 of the French Code of Civil Procedure), and the party-appointed expert, who advises a party and not the court-appointed expert.