The conveyancing debate is set to run well into 1995.

The Council of the Law Society made a number of decisions at its December meeting.

Much of the publicity for the meeting surrounded the question of separate representation of lender and borrower but other important decisions were made.

It was agreed:-- to keep under constant review the relationship between conveyancing prices and quality and to monitor firms known to charge comparatively low fees;-- to encourage firms to charge appropriately and to compete other than on price;-- to amend the publicity code to make it clear that all advertisements for fixed conveyancing fees must state whether they are inclusive of the costs of any work to be done for a lender client, and what expen ses or disbursements are covered by the fee;-- to encourage local law societies to refer firms placing misleading or inaccurate advertisements to the Solicitors Complaints Bureau;-- to publish a new estimate of conveyancing charges form which firms will be encouraged to use;-- to continue to develop a conveyancing quality mark building on the practice management standards.

We will seek to learn lessons from Northern Ireland, where a mark is already in place;-- to issue an explanatory leaflet for conveyancing clients to emphasise the importance and extent of the solicitors' role in the conveyancing process and the value of a quality service; and-- to carry out a study of successful conveyancing firms and publish the results to the profession.Council also decided that unrestricted joint representation of borrower and lender may, in some circumstances, no longer be an option, bearing two particular problems in mind.

First, there is a growing perception that conflicts are dangerous.

The outcome of the appeal in Mortgage Express Ltd v Bowerman & Partners [1994] The Times, 19 May which may contain helpful dicta, is awaited.

But there is already judicial authority in Clarke Boyce v Mouat [1993] 3 WLR 1021, that when acting for both lender and borrower, a solicitor should get the informed consent of both parties.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders has accepted that some change will have to be made to accommodate the clarification of the law contained in Clarke Boyce.Secondly, there are ever-increasing demands of lenders in their standing instructions to solicitors.

A number of lenders have recently revised these.

We cannot deal with the bona fides of their borrower, or many of the other requirements relating to insurance, planning and valuation, which they now suggest are our responsibility.

It is completely unacceptable for us and our indemnity fund to underwrite their lending.

We can only deal with this as a united profession.

Individual firms are not in a position to bargain with lenders.

We will deal with the title, the security and the registration.

These are matters which the Law Society will be taking up shortly with the lenders.But to deal with both these problems longer term, the Council authorised further work on what has become known as 'the defined retainer'.

Under this option, joint representation of borrower and lender would continue, but the solicitor's responsibilities to the lender client would be clearly defined.It was also agreed that the standards and guidance committee would bring a paper before the Council dealing with joint representation in what are known as high risk cases, such as where the loan is for commercial purposes, where the solicitor or member of his or her family, or an employee of the solicitor, has a personal interest in the transaction, or where the transaction is one in which the solicitor is also acting for both buyer and seller under one of the present exceptions to r.6.The Council also agreed that whether joint representation continues or not, a separate fee should be charged for work done for lenders.

Lenders who wish to pass the costs on should take steps to ensure that borrowers understand at the outset that there is an additional and separate legal fee for this work.But the problems do not end there.

Where lenders are separately represented some are already imposing, through their own solicitors, a whole host of unreasonable conditions on the borrower's solicitor.

We have to tackle this problem too.

If we do not, we are again storing up horrendous problems for the Solicitor s Indemnity Fund in years to come.

49% in value of claims already goes on conveyancing matters.I am sure that the result of last year's consultation, which showed a clear majority against separate representation, weighed very heavily on the minds of the Council members when they voted in the way they did.I only wish the profession had shown the same excitement about the problem in the middle of last year when they were being asked to respond to the consultation paper as they did in recent weeks when it looked as though the Council might ban joint representation.

Tough decisions have to be made by the Council in 1995.There will be a further consultation paper and meetings around the country.

I sincerely hope that either directly or indirectly every member of the profession involved in conveyancing will respond.

The conveyancing market is changing around us; we have to change with it.-- A glimpse of the future!'In the last few weeks, rumours have circulated that the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the British Banking Association have been working together to draft a standard form of undertaking to be given by solicitors to lenders when drawing the mortgage loan.

It is thought that the form of undertaking is intended to save lenders the trouble to which they are presently put in devising ever more comprehensive instructions to solicitors and that lenders will start demanding the undertaking, the text of which is as follows:"In consideration of you graciously permitting us to act for you without charge and for your borrower at a wholly uneconomic fee, we, the undersigned solicitors, hereby undertake that if you shall at any time be unable to recover all sums secured by the mortgage executed by your borrower, whatever the cause and whether or not that cause has anything to do with us, the Solicitors Indemnity Fund will pay and make good your loss, including penalty interest and all fees incurred by you, whether necessarily or unnecessarily.We confirm that your rights against the Solicitors Indemnity Funds shall not in any way be prejudiced by any incompetence on your part in the administration of the mortgage account nor by the devaluation of your security caused by any ill considered and unimaginative realisation policy pursued by you or the institutional lending industry."Mr Byass declined to state how the copy was obtained saying that he was obliged to protect the anonymity of his informant.

A spokesperson for the Law Society, when asked to comment, opined that the undertaking proposed seemed not to be significantly more onerous that the obligations presently imposed by many mortgage lenders.'