Pioneer volume conveyancing firm Barnetts broken up for sale

Leading volume property firm Barnetts has gone into administration and will be broken up into four main business components to be sold separately, it has emerged.

The firm's eponymous founder, Richard Barnett, was chair of the Law Society's conveyancing and land law committee for five years in 2007-2011, when the society was actively developing the Conveyancing Quality Scheme, launched in October 2010.

Barnett, who set up the firm in 1980, said the break-up was "a fantastic opportunity for the firm to be able to move forward to the next level".

The sale of the business in separate parts is expected to preserve all 130 jobs.

Barnetts's conveyancing business is being acquired by volume property and probate practice DC Law, a licensed conveyancer's firm which became an alternative business structure in January 2012.

The Basildon-based practice was set up in 1996 as Dorling Cottrell by conveyancer Stephen Cottrell before merging with Secure Legal Solutions in January 2013 and is now trading as DC Law.

It now has branches in Stratford on Avon and St Ives and has been one of the practices on the panel of property giant Move With Us since 2005.

Barnett said his firm had "disparate parts" and that as such "it was unlikely that we could ever have achieved one buyer for the whole."

"Reconstruction of the business was the only way to satisfy everyone," he said.

Barnetts' personal injury and litigation business is being bought by Liverpool-based claimant firm SGI Law, which last August acquired Challinors' personal injury work.

Simpson Millar, whose talks with Slater and Gordon about a possible acquisition have been delayed, is to buy Barnetts' care home business.

Seneca Banking Consultants will acquire the interest rate swap business. The Barnetts website was still live this morning as news of the break-up came through.