Countrywide Conveyancing/HSBC - avoid like the plague if you want to complete

SuzieSue

Yorkie1 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure all this has come in since you bought late last year, Lance.

Yes, I understand it came started in January 2012.

phil_b_2

Completed on the 23rd of this month using HSBC and their solicitors. Spot on service, great comms and everything was made very easy for me.

i recommend them personally...

richyt_2

Hi there

Just a message to everyone in a battle of what looks like complete doom and failure with CW.

We completed and are moving in tomorrow to our new house after three week of calling everyday.

Two things that really helped were:

1. We went into our local branch in horsforth (Small town out of Leeds) The customer services person was brilliant and really helped us in the last few days by making seven calls to CW to move our case on.

2. We threatened to complain to the Financial Ombudsman.

Keep pushing and you'll get there, at one point I was thinking we'd not ever move...

Good luck
Richyt

kingstreet

phil_b wrote: »

Completed on the 23rd of this month using HSBC and their solicitors. Spot on service, great comms and everything was made very easy for me.

i recommend them personally...

Could you tell us which route you went?

Did you use your own solicitor, or did you pick from the HSBC panel?

Were Countrywide involved?

phil_b_2

kingstreet wrote: »

Could you tell us which route you went?

Did you use your own solicitor, or did you pick from the HSBC panel?

Were Countrywide involved?

I used a solicitor from the HSBC panel to save the £192 (and the panel solicitors were cheaper than my locals also).

Countrywide were on the letterhead of most corrospondence and I logged in to their online system to check progress. The solicitor assigned to me was Shulmans though. Not sure how they all link up but the person in charge of my case was always on hand when needed and very efficient. I hardly seemed to have to do anything except sign the various bits that came in the post and send them back.

People have good and bad experiences with pretty much every service there is out there. You only tend to hear about the bad ones. I imagine the HSBC deals get taken a lot at the mo as they are (or were for me at the time) the best by far, so I'm not surprised they get talked about a lot. Thousands of transactions will be taking place, and if you're only hearing about a few bad ones then that needs to be put into perspective a bit.

Richard_Webster

I used a solicitor from the HSBC panel to save the £192 (and the panel solicitors were cheaper than my locals also).

Countrywide were on the letterhead of most corrospondence and I logged in to their online system to check progress. The solicitor assigned to me was Shulmans though. Not sure how they all link up but the person in charge of my case was always on hand when needed and very efficient. I hardly seemed to have to do anything except sign the various bits that came in the post and send them back.

People have good and bad experiences with pretty much every service there is out there. You only tend to hear about the bad ones. I imagine the HSBC deals get taken a lot at the mo as they are (or were for me at the time) the best by far, so I'm not surprised they get talked about a lot. Thousands of transactions will be taking place, and if you're only hearing about a few bad ones then that needs to be put into perspective a bit.

There will be many quite reasonable and respectable firms on the list - but a few that MSEers might want to avoid.

Phil B - did Shulmans charge you the amount that HSBC told you they would charge or were there any "extras". such as to complete the SDLT form?

rach1968

Hi all
i've been reading with interest all the posts about Countrywide. We were supposed to move Friday and our buyers are using HSBC for their mortgage. They aren't using Cou trywide but a local solicitor, however Countrywide are the solicitors/conveyencers involved on HSBCs side. Here lies the problem. We had our removal van packed and ready to go, waited until 4 o'clock and still no transfer of their funds hence no moving :-( We had to move all of our furniture back in. Nkw we can't get answers, a new date and it seems Countrywide are asking for yet more info!!! What can I do? I am desperate to complete and the person I am buying from is now threatening to pull out. Am I entitled to compensation for the non completion...to pay for my removal fees? Who do I threaten Countrywide with and indeed, who do I contact to do so? Any ideas? Many thanks in advance for any help people can offer.

betmunch

Rach1968 - had you actually exchanged contracts with the date set as last Friday? If not was the plan to Exchange and Complete on the same day?

rach1968

Hi betmunch
Yes, we were to complete and exchange on the same day. I have managed to email the CEOs office at the HSBC telling them of the problems, they were quick to respond but simply said that as completion hadn't taken place nothing can be done. They then just said to contact my own solicitors to find out when a new completion date might be :-( No help really.

seagull-kev

Hi All,
I too have been reading this with much interest & now feel compelled to join in!
It's quite odd - I felt completely alone with the problems I've been having but after reading this thread it's crazy to see how many people's stories sound EXACTLY like mine, you'd swear people posting on this thread had read my mind.

My perspective is from the opposite side to Rach1968 - I'm in exactly the same situation as your buyer. The people we're buying from were also ready to move out on Friday 23rd March and we had booked time off work and cleared our weekend ready to move in. I'd arranged home insurance and life insurance to begin on 23rd March and had also arranged to cancel and empty my Storage lock up...then the sale failed to complete.

My solicitor has been banging his head against a brick wall with this one - Countrywide are constantly asking stupid questions that do not need to be asked. They're requesting documents from our solicitor that have already been supplied. They're impossible to get hold of and keep placing the blame on everyone but themselves. The most annoying thing is that they could've asked these questions weeks and weeks ago, but instead they've waited till the week of completion to mess things up for us all.

Their inept and incompetent behaviour has meant that as a first time buyer I will now have to pay Stamp Duty - over £1300 that I can't really afford. It's angered me enough to want to pull out of the sale too but we've spent too much time and money on it now to go back on it. If I knew we'd have these problems at the start I'd have steered well clear of HSBC, even though they were the cheapest lenders.

We have sent a strongly worded letter of complaint to HSBC and another to Countrywide demanding that they reimburse our stamp duty money plus the money we've lost on home insurance on a home that we don't own & the costs involved with storage and removals.

We fully expect their replies to say that it's tough luck and that its not their fault that the sale was delayed, but we're not going to let this rest until they pay out. If we're not satisfied with their responses our next step is to go to the financial ombudsman and even the press - hell there's enough people talking about it online (and in a Guardian article) to make a big news story out of it!

I think HSBC will be ruing the day they made a deal with Countrywide!