Title insurance has hardly made an impression on the conveyancing debate so far.

When conveyancers' woes are aired, talk has concentrated on unfair competition by cut-price solicitors and licensed conveyancers, or estate agents determined to find the cheapest solicitor regardless of quality.

Title insurance is hardly mentioned.That may now be changing.

This month should see the arrival of a scheme which, rather than offering title insurance as a bolt-on service, makes it the basis of a comprehensive remortgage package.

The Halifax Building Society will be offering the scheme through 15 branches, together with First American Title Insurance and Kent solicitors Marsons (see [1997] Gazette, 22 January, 1).Neil Gower, secretary to the Law Society's land law and succession committee, questions how relevant title insurance is to the UK property market.

'Since the 1970s various large American title insurers have tried to import their system into the UK, but with little success,' he says.

'American-style title insurance was developed to suit the American property buying system which is very different from our own.

The culture here is different.

People would rather have a title that has been properly checked by a solicitor than an insurance policy they don't need.'Mr Gower says lenders view title insurance as a marketing tool in a highly competitive market-place for remortgages.

'The remortgage market is the only area of the mortgage market which has been really active since the slump,' he said.

'The Halifax probably thinks the title insurance scheme will give them an edge over competitors.'He is sceptical about claims that title insurance could somehow revolutionise general domestic conveyancing.

'I think it's unlikely that title insurance will have a wider application to general domestic conveyancing.

If you're in a house and remortgaging it, you're in a completely different position from someone buying a new property.'Land registrar Martin Wood, while remaining neutral on the subject, stresses the safeguards already provided by the Land Registry.

'Our view is that it is up to the consumer whether they pay for title insurance or not.

We already have a land registry which provides a comprehensive guarantee of title backed by the state.

It provides security of ownership, rather than the compensation for loss of ownership which might be provided by title insurance.'Mr Wood added that more than 16 million titles had been registered, out of a potential total of 22 million.There are three title insurance companies currently active in the UK -- First American, Stewart Title and the UK-based London & European.Janet Milton, in-house counsel at Stewart Title says there is 'no doubt' that title insurance had surfaced most recently in the remortgage area, where it was combined with local search indemnity cover.

'Much of what has been heard or written about title insurance has been in the context of remortgages,' she commented.

'It has been the case over the past few years that, irrespective of title insurance, lenders have increasingly marketed remortgage products where the borrower has the option to use one of a small number of solicitors.

One assumes the Halifax scheme builds upon that concept.

It does not follow there is any attempt to oust the solicitor from the process.'Chairman of London & European Fred Kerr said his firm tended to write title insurance policies for specialist mortgage products such as a package, including conveyancing, for the Bristol & West Building Society's 'right to buy' customers.

Mr Kerr set up the British Land Title Association last year with Innes Hardie, chief executive of Stewart Title (UK), to help spread awareness about title insurance.

'It's not about cheap conveyancing,' Mr Kerr emphasises.

'There's no substitute for good conveyancing.'There does, however, seem to be a difference in approach between Stewart Title and London & European on the one hand, and First American on the other.

Phillip Oldcorn, in-house counsel at First American, says the idea that title insurance could be a 'bolt on' service had been tried in the seventies, and had failed.

'It can't just be an extra cost, it must be a re-engineering of the process,' he said.

However, extending the scope of title insurance beyond remortgages to sales and purchases is still some time away, he believes.'We're a huge company and we've got plenty of time.

We're not here to come up with quick fixes.

We're here to make a big change,' he added.Meanwhile, a Halifax spokeswoman was at pains to play down the significance of the First American scheme: 'It's a small pilot, which will only handle a small number of cases initially.

There are no immediate plans to extend the pilot to anywhere else, and it will not necessarily be introduced on a permanent basis.

That depends on results,' she said.The Law Society's Neil Gower says introduction in the autumn 1997 of the standard mortgage instructions (SMIs) -- an agreement hammered out between the Law Society and the big lenders -- might reduce the need for some kinds of title insurance, by making solicitors more aware of their responsibilities for title.Under SMI, which provides that title is a matter for the solicitor, practitioners will be able to arrange specific indemnities when flaws in title are detected, such as missing title documents, for example, or the lack of a repairing covenant.To meet this need the Society will be launching a tailor-made specialist defective title insurance scheme in the near future, said Mr Gower.