The theory behind the sellers' pack is that a reduction in the period between handshake and exchange of contracts will reduce the opportunity for property sellers and buyers to renegotiate and that a better-informed buyer will make an offer on a more realistic basis.

The proposals were piloted in Bristol and the government claims they resulted in a reduction in the period between informal agreement and contract from 60 days to 48 days.The legal work in preparing a seller's pack is roughly equivalent to what happens now when a property is sold by auction or tender.

Searches will be made by the seller's solicitor and the usual property information form, office copies of the register (or abstracts of title), property information form and fixtures, fittings and contents list will be prepared and made available for inspection by interested buyers.

A copy of the lease and the usual additional leasehold information would be supplied for leasehold sales.Obligations of this kind would be relatively easy to enforce through statutory control on selling professionals, such as estate agents and solicitors.

Greater difficulty would be encountered with individuals selling privately.

Sellers would incur a new expense by being forced to pay for pre-contract searches.

However, most sellers are also buyers who are accustomed to making advance payments to meet search costs.

The broad effect, so far as the legal side of the transaction is concerned, ought, therefore, to be cost neutral.As part of the sellers' pack it is proposed that every home seller provides a property condition report, the so-called sellers' survey.This proposal requires a surveying profession of at least 8,000-strong and there are currently only half that number in practice.

The government intends to license people familiar with property, such as builders and double glazing fitters, to carry out the seller's survey, subject to taking a 12-week training course.

Unlike their chartered brethren, these ersatz surveyors will not be professionally regulated so it will be necessary to set up a quango to impose standards of quality and integrity.The additional cost of the sellers' survey (£320 per case in the Bristol pilot) is only justifiable if lenders will accept the sellers' survey as evidence of condition and rely on desk-top valuations to establish value.

However, the lending industry has expressed serious misgivings about the sellers' survey and is signalling that lenders will continue to require separate conventional valuations.The government has trumpeted the Bristol pilot as being a great success.

It is certainly true that the solicitors who participated liked the change in procedure.

But the fact that from a target of 250 participating sellers only 189 took part - even with the government picking up the extra cost - tells its own story.

The housing market in Bristol was known to be particularly buoyant, which may explain the accelerated pace of the transactions studied and the low failure rate.

It is questionable whether any proper conclusions can be drawn from such a small survey.The extension of the National Land Information Service to the whole country will mean that solicitors with Internet access will be able to obtain search information on-line from those authorities that are computerised and within three working days for those that are not.Whether the seller's survey will work is highly conjectural.

No equivalent statutory requirement exists anywhere in the world.

If it is introduced conveyancing solicitors should seriously consider becoming accredited to carry out the survey.

The survey work will probably be more profitable and less irksome than the conveyancing work.