Homebuying is said to be one of life's most stressful experiences. And among the many challenges is to find legal services at a reasonable price, and then to get your purchase handled by someone reliable, swift and efficient. If you are a first-time buyer with no previous knowledge or experience of the property market, it can be especially hard to know where to start.The legal side of buying a home, including the transfer of ownership, is known as conveyancing It's a process that can be hideously complicated. 'Do you know a good solicitor?" It's a question asked time and again by house-hunters across the UK. When the very companies responsible for mis-selling endowments in the first place start telling customers what's good for them, that's reason enough to raise an eyebrow.Let's not forget that Abbey was recently fined £800,000 for mishandling its endowment compensation processes, and forced to reopen thousands of previously rejected cases.Unfortunately, the endowment claims handlers don't inspire much faith either.Although they help administer the claims process on behalf of consumers, they do so for a fat fee.There's nothing to stop individuals making a compensation claim themselves - and no difference in the outcome. Today, they're getting just 3.7 per cent.It's not much better with home loans.

It first cut rates across a number of products by up to 0.25 percentage points on 18 July, and then - barely four weeks later - slashed them again by up to 0.4 percentage points.Pity the poor customers who, just one month ago, were enjoying rates of 4.35 per cent on any savings above £1 in Universal's Regular Saver Plus bonus account. For while you relax this summer, many banks, building societies and insurers aren't in a holiday mood. Instead, they're busy cutting interest rates on savings accounts, clamping down on companies that help victims of the mortgage endowment mis-selling scandals, and quietly axing good deals.For savings cuts, it might seem unfair to pick on any one lender, as most have done so in the wake of this month's reduction in the Bank of England base rate.But one that has dealt customers a particularly duff hand is Universal building society. This makes clear that inflation does not have to be mentioned as part of an advertisement for such a financial product.But premium bonds are not interest-bearing products: they reward consumers with tax-free prizes instead.NS&I says it complies voluntarily with the CCAIBA: "With premium bonds, you're gambling on your return - the average punter accepts that."Rather than paying interest, premium bonds have a "prize rate" - linked to the Bank of England base rate - that determines the return on your investment if you enjoy "average luck". But this simply reflects the size of the bonanza available each month and is meaningless for those who don't win anything.Last week, the premium-bond prize rate dropped from 3.25 to 3 per cent.. Iain Banks or inheritance tax? For preferred holiday reading, that's not a tough one.

Few are the sunseekers who jet off with a book about personal finance. You aren't really getting away from it all if you stash weighty tomes onmortgage lending beneath the swimming gear and towels in your suitcase. Yet brushing up on how to conserve your cash while sipping a seabreeze cocktail isn't such a bad idea. They were given the green light.In fact, the rules that premium bond adverts follow most closely come under the Code of Conduct for the Advertising of Interest-Bearing Accounts (CCAIBA), published by the British Bankers' Association. "We don't feel [inflation] needs to be made clear in the advert; it's as clear as possible."Premium bonds also have a handy get-out clause for not sticking to the regulator's guideline rules: they don't have to. Because they are backed by the government, they fall outside the FSA's remit.The only form of regulatory test that the TV ads featuring Sir Alan had to pass before going public was to be approved by the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre. These dictate that, if a financial product is particularly affected by a single factor, then any adverts for it should reflect this."If inflation was a major issue for a product, we would assume that it would be made clear," confirms an FSA spokesman.The threat is acknowledged by NS&I.