The Israeli court appointed its own expert and his valuation of our apartment is far too low. Can we challenge it from Canada?

The opinion lands as a PDF in Hebrew, twelve pages long, and it values the Ramat Gan apartment at something a Toronto family recognises as roughly two thirds of what the neighbours sold for. The instinct is to commission a Canadian appraisal, or a second Israeli one, and file it. That is the one response that reliably fails. Once a court has appointed its own expert under Regulation 88 of the Civil Procedure Regulations 5779-2018, the party opinions recede and the challenge has to be made against the court expert's own work, on his own terrain.

---

Detailed Answer

Regulation 88 lets the court appoint one or more experts to give an opinion on a matter within their expertise, and the court weighs the value of the case, its complexity and the extent of the dispute between the parties' experts when deciding whether to do so. Regulation 89 keeps the appointee free of conflicts of interest, and Regulation 91(a) requires the court expert to deliver the opinion within 60 days. The practical consequence is that Israeli judges treat the resulting figure as the working answer, and appellate courts are reluctant to disturb it. What the rules preserve for you is a sequence, and each step has a short window. First come written clarification questions, put to the expert directly, which is where most real ground is won: a valuation that ignored an approved building plan, applied the wrong floor area from the Land Registry extract, or used comparables from a different street will usually be adjusted by the expert himself rather than defended. Next comes an application to summon the expert for cross-examination at the hearing. Only where something is badly wrong, such as a demonstrable conflict of interest or a methodological error the expert refuses to address, will the court entertain a second expert.

Living abroad affects this less than clients expect, and more than their lawyers sometimes plan for. Your presence is not needed at any stage, and the clarification questions and the cross-examination are handled by Israeli counsel. What does need managing is the inspection. A court expert valuing an apartment will arrange a site visit, and an owner in Canada who leaves that to a tenant or a neighbour loses the chance to point out the renovated bathroom, the parking space registered as a separate sub-plot, or the storeroom that appears on the Tabu extract but not in the flat. Send your Israeli lawyer or a surveyor to attend the inspection with the documents in hand. Our answer on Israeli property appraisals and how they are used covers the partition context in which most of these appointments arise.

In Practice: Under Regulation 88 of the Civil Procedure Regulations 5779-2018 the court appoints its own expert, and Regulation 91(a) gives that expert 60 days to file the opinion. Written clarification questions are normally ordered within 15 to 30 days of the opinion being served, and the Magistrates Court or Family Court hearing the file will set the expert's fee, commonly NIS 6,000 to NIS 15,000 for a residential valuation, usually split between the parties. Expect the court to adopt the appointed expert's figure unless the clarification stage exposes a specific error, so treat those questions as the main event rather than as a formality.

When to Consult a Lawyer

• The expert's report relies on a floor area, a registration status or a planning right that the Land Registry extract or the local planning file contradicts, since that is the class of error clarification questions actually fix.
• The valuation is being used to set a buyout price between co-heirs rather than a market sale price, because the difference between the two is worth real money and the instructions to the expert should have said which one was wanted.
• You were not told about the site inspection until after it happened, which is a procedural point that has to be raised immediately rather than saved for the appeal.

---

Speak With an Israeli Attorney

We attend court expert inspections on behalf of owners abroad, draft the clarification questions that actually move a figure, and apply for cross-examination or a further expert where the opinion cannot be repaired.

Contact us for a confidential initial consultation.