Flawed Appraisal in a Property Auction? Compensation Just Got Easier to Obtain

Anyone who buys a home at a judicial auction relies, first and foremost, on one document: the valuation report drawn up by the court-appointed expert. That is where you find the square footage, the condition of the property, any building irregularities, and the estimated market value. Buyers decide whether to take part in the auction, and how much to bid, on that basis.

But what happens when that report turns out to be seriously wrong? A recent order of the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione, no. 22597/2026) tackles exactly this problem, and in doing so shifts an important balance: no longer placing the full burden on the party who suffered the harm, but adopting a fairer standard of proof, closer to the reality of anyone bidding at an auction.

The case: a €78,000 gap

A woman purchased a property at auction. After the award, she requested a preliminary technical assessment and discovered that the court’s valuation report contained several significant errors: the actual surface area differed from what was stated, the property had structural shortcomings and building irregularities, and its development potential had been overstated.

A subsequent court-appointed technical assessment quantified the damage at roughly €78,000 — the difference between the value stated in the report and the property’s real value.

Despite this objective figure, both the Court of first instance and the Court of Appeal of Genoa awarded a much smaller sum: just €19,500, a quarter of the ascertained difference. The reasoning of the lower courts was that the buyer had to prove with certainty that, had the valuation been correct, she would have paid less.

The principle: certainty isn’t required, a lost “chance” is enough

The Supreme Court rejected this approach as placing an excessive burden of proof on the injured party. The core of the ruling is this: a buyer harmed by a flawed appraisal does not need to prove that, with accurate figures, they would certainly have bid less. It is enough to show that they lost a real and serious possibility — the possibility of taking part in the auction fully aware of the property’s actual condition, and therefore of being able to make a different offer.

This is the so-called loss of chance doctrine: a concept long used in Italian civil law across various fields (from medical liability to public tender disputes), here applied to the relationship between an auction buyer and the court-appointed appraiser. What is compensated is not the certainty of a missed advantage, but the concrete probability of having been able to obtain it.

“I inspected the property before the auction”: not enough to rule out liability

A second noteworthy point concerns visiting the property before the auction — a precaution that many practitioners rightly recommend. The Supreme Court clarifies that having personally inspected the property does not automatically rule out the appraiser’s liability.

A buyer may well notice obvious, visible defects during an inspection. But they are not required to independently verify matters that call for specific technical expertise: the property’s actual size, its planning compliance, its structural characteristics, or its development potential. On these points, it is entirely legitimate to rely on the official report prepared as part of the enforcement proceedings. And that is precisely why, if the report is wrong on these matters, liability remains with whoever drafted it.

What happens next: referral for a new judgment

The Supreme Court did not itself set the amount of compensation: it quashed the appellate ruling and referred the case back to a different panel of the Court of Appeal of Genoa. The new court will have to reassess the damage by correctly applying the loss-of-chance standard, starting from the objective evidence already gathered during the proceedings — including the €78,000 gap ascertained by the expert — and providing a clear, reasoned account of how it arrives at the compensation figure.

Why this decision matters

For anyone buying property at auction, this ruling makes it more realistic to obtain compensation when a valuation report proves seriously unreliable, without having to meet an almost impossible standard of proof (certainty about an alternative course of action). For appraisers and technical consultants working within enforcement proceedings, it is a reminder of the care and accuracy their work demands: mistakes carry consequences, even when the buyer has exercised reasonable diligence.

Anyone who believes they have suffered harm from a flawed auction appraisal now has an additional tool available: rather than proving “how much they would certainly have saved,” they can rely on the loss of a real, serious possibility — assessable on the basis of the technical evidence gathered during the proceedings.

Reference order: Corte di Cassazione, civil section, order no. 22597/2026