RURAL FEARS While the new sellers' pack may help speed up the home-buying process in large conurbations where straightforward registered titles prevail, I cannot see that the system will work in rural areas where unregistered titles are by no means uncommon and where many other egregious quirks abound.For example, here in west Cornwall flying freeholds are frequent problems.

In halcyon days, now sadly gone, we tended to accept their existence without too much fuss on the basis that as the properties involved were old, the situation had existed happily for years and would probably continue to do so.With the advent of the Council of Mortgage Lenders handbook, pragmatic conveyancing has, understandably all but disappeared.

Under the new arrangements, is a seller supposed to try to resolve the problem before putting the property on the market? Or should he keep quiet and let the buyer find out? Either way, time is going to be lost in obtaining indemnity insurance or obtaining an appropriate deed.And what about searches? Given that no amount of legislation can overcome the problems to which Sarah Dwight referred in her letter (see [2000] Gazette, 15 December, 18), and given that the CML handbook requires that searches are less than three months old at exchange of contracts, is a seller to be expected to pay for fresh searchers every three months?In Cornwall, the full collection of pre-contract searches amounts to around 170.

If so, it will be a bitter pill for a cash-strapped family to swallow.

It would cost them 680 in search fees alone if their home takes more than a year to sell.

I recollect that when the Law Society's TransAction scheme first appeared, the seller was supposed to provide the searches, but that soon became 'a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance'.Creaky and cumbersome the present system may be.

But more than 25 years' conveyancing experience tells me that the new arrangements won't ease things.James D.

Jacoby, solicitor, Penzance, Cornwall