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

Yorkie1

I believe the LEO has powers to award compensation; check out whether the FO also does. I suspect you won't need to go to court, and you certainly don't need legal advice to go to the Ombudsmen.

Thrugelmir

Richard_Webster wrote: »

It must be something new that Countrywide/HSBC have devised that is causing the problem.

Maybe due to the number of mortgage fraud cases involving solicitors that are now coming to light.

326 cases in 2011 costing £65 million. Or a cost of £100 per mortgage application made. (not against HSBC I should add).

Seems as HSBC have good reason to be concerned.

appledell

I have been trying to finalise my house purchase for 3 months now. We started the application process before Countrywide/HSBC were in force, yet our solicitor hstill has to deal with them. They have been sitting on paperwork for a month now. We pressed the HSBC to get to the bottom of the delays. My solicitor has just received correspondance from CC asking for another 14 questions to be answered !

Countrywide conveyancing must be another name for incompetence.

I have forwarded details to BBC watchdog. I suggest others do the same.

hotpot1000

2 wks ago countrywide(for my buyer) put forward 16th april as a moving date, I accepted and my conveyancers have been unable to contact them or get any response to progress it.

My buyer apparently suggested exchange for yesterday then to move in 7 days which I agreed and still countrywide will not contact my side, so still no exchange.

turtle37

We agreed to sell our house in November and still waiting & chasing it up. Our soliciter agreed to an undertaking from HSBC over 2 weeks ago but he's still waiting. We are not in a chain. So it couldn't be any more simple and yet 5 months have passed. The buyer is just as fed up as us but there doesn't seem anything they can do to speed it up.

As the seller, is it worth complaining to the ombudsman. I don't bank or have any dealings with HSBC so can't see if complaining to them would do anything. I know the buyer has been complaining to the bank

Missfruiti

I too am in the same situation as appledell and others.
I accepted an offer on my flat in Jan 12 and my buyer is using HSBC and hence Countrywide as well as his own local solicitor.
All the paperwork required for exchange is agreed between my local solicitor and his, and it has been in place for 3 weeks now. But we cannot get a straight from Countrywide - they are evasive, keep claiming not to have received documentation when we know they have. Finally after persistant pestering by my buyers solicitor, they have picked up the file and sent us 3 pages of pointless questions.
The chain is now on brink of collapse as there is still no end in sight.
We have asked our buyer to re-arrange his mortgage with another provider as we have no faith that we will EVER resolve the issue with Countrywide. The most frustrating this is we cant even complain about it to anyone as we are not the customer (so I have emailed BBC Watchdog as a last resort).
I am currently 5 months pregnant and completely stressed out with the whole situation - the likelyhood is I'll have my baby before this sale goes through!!

SuzieSue

Missfruiti wrote: »

The most frustrating this is we cant even complain about it to anyone as we are not the customer (so I have emailed BBC Watchdog as a last resort).
I am currently 5 months pregnant and completely stressed out with the whole situation - the likelyhood is I'll have my baby before this sale goes through!!

It might also be worth contacting Radio 4's Money Box as they did a feature about it a few weeks ago and so will want to know that things have not improved and have actually got worse since then.

seagull-kev

Good to hear others are contacting Watchdog, we've done the same too, and also 'Don't get Done, Get Dom' which according to the Auto Response, is currently in production and looking for cases to work on. If enough people let them know surely it'll get picked up again somewhere in broadcast media.

I too will soon be into the 5th month of waiting for our sale to go through, having started the process in January.

Last week our solicitor had to send Countrywide the same document THREE times because apparently they didn't receive it (a likely story!).

My sister has also just sold her house, and was told use Countrywide to deal with the sale. Already they've experienced the same problems as the rest of us, and their sale is nothing to do with HSBC - CW are incompetent no matter what they're dealing with - & both mine and my sister's sales are the most simple no chain sales you could wish for!

I think its scandalous that us HSBC customers have to PAY £192 for Countrywide to be involved, yet they refuse to talk to us.
It's even got to the point where the person at HSBC dealing with our complaint won't actually speak to us when we phone up every day asking them to pull their finger out!

One tiny ray of light; my solicitor has heard that some people in our situation have been refunded their fees by way of compensation...so it's definitely work pursuing it

Naya

Good morning, after spending hours reading all the post...I have decided to some research.

I am buying a property and porting my HSBC mortgage. My estate agent is insisting that I use their solicitor. The solicitor recommended is telling me that they are not on the panel and this will make things more difficult. They have to certify copy everything to HSBC assigned solicitor and this is where all the delay is, the back and forth.

So taking that into account, went back to my estate agent and told them that I will go with HSBC solicitor and they threthen me that they will put the property back on the market.

I told them go ahead as their solicitor is charging me £1000 more than the HSBC one.

I then call CW and told them that HSBC has asked me to call them to find a solicitor nearer to me and they gave me the name of 4 firms. I have spoken to one of them, very nice gentleman and he explained the process and said that I have to go back to CW and ask them to refer my file to them.

They are an award winning firm and I could find no complaints for them.

So I would advise others to call CW first and choose your solicitor from the list they give you rather than just be appointed one in the far far away land.

The number for the CW dept looking after HSBC customers is 0161 333 4605.
They will give you a quote on the phone and then you can call them or email them back advising which firm you would like to be referred to.

That should save some pain as if anything is delayed at least you can go to their office and scream.

My estate agent also told me to go to another mortgage provider and I wanted to ask them..Will you pay the difference in interest that I will need to pay to another lender?

I have such a good rate with HSBC that I believe it is worth the pain plus their solicitor is charging less.

My estage agent solicitor charges £48 for bank transfer, HSBC one charges £18

My estate agent solicitor charges £150 for leasehold property and HSBC one charges £0.

My estate agent solicitor charges £95 for buying with a mortgage and HSBC one charges £0.

In the end, it all adds up to a nice little sum and you should look after your interest first.

Richard_Webster

That's interesting - so what happens if you choose one of the HSBC list yourself and tell HSBC that that is who you are using - what do they do then?

Obviously if you can find a reasonably good firm that is on the panel it is better to go with them.