What is an Expert Witness Service?
You may not be familiar with the term Expert Witness, essentially, it’s an individual with expert knowledge within a certain field or discipline, they will be able to represent your case ensuring that they are able to provide independent expert reports for your case. Expert Witnesses can offer you impartial, honest and independent opinions, even if this information doesn’t further support you directly.
What Is An Expert Witness Report?
The purpose of an expert witness report is to provide an expert opinion on a case. This is mainly to offer the court with a professional opinion in order to allow a well informed decision to be made on the dispute. Within the report, the facts and the expert opinion will be clearly separated.
Provide an independent expert opinion in their area of expertise on the subject matter in accordance with the instructions they have been given. These instructions will be shown in the Expert Witness’s Report which will be viewed by the other side and the Court.
Provide the opinion in the form of a report and/or evidence before a Court (or other tribunal) as required. The report is required as it is not usually possible for the Expert to give evidence without it.
The Expert Witness will ensure that the Expert’s Report provided contains the information required by the Court Rules. If you choose to proceed you will have to give a copy of the report to the other side in the dispute. At that time a copy of the other side’s Expert’s Report will be passed on to you.You will need to comply with the specific procedure rules applicable and any Court or tribunal orders in the case, they will provide truthful, impartial and independent opinions whether or not these opinions favour your case.
An expert witness has an overriding duty to the Court (or other tribunal). This duty supersedes any duty owed to you even though you are still responsible for paying the expert’s fees.
The Court expects an expert witness to be independent and impartial and will discount the evidence of one who is or is seen to be partisan.
Here at Simon Levy, we are committed to providing you with a variety of Building Surveying services including expert witness service right across the South East. Whether it's regarding a residential, institutional, commercial, educational, ecclesiastical and commercial property, we are here to assist you. Get in touch with our team to find out more about the assistance and guidance we can offer you.
