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

nikkickchloe

Thanks Yorkie1!

hotpot1000

I dont have a chain, i accepted my buyers offer 25/1 and still no sign of exchange even, buyer chose my house to move quickly as I can leave anytime after ive packed.

I did not know countrywide would be involved
they lost my fixtures list which was sent with a pile of other docs, said they never received it.
they sent a list of 11 questions on monday -which were very similar to those Id already answered on a form 3 weeks before

if i dont get anywhere next week it'll be 8 wks of nothingness

so Yorkie ur absolutely right!

kingstreet

I hate having to say this, but it's spot on.

If you're going to HSBC for a mortgage you HAVE to pick one of the other 42 firms from the panel, to avoid Countrywide.

If you use your own solicitor who isn't on the HSBC panel, you are likely to get Countrywide acting for HSBC. You can't control that, unfortunately.

Simon_W_2

We have taken a mortgage with HSBC and our solicitors were not on the Board list. Countrywide were forced upon us to represent HSBC for an extra cost of £192. We had no choice in the matter and would not have used HSBC had we known of the problems.

Countrywide are USELESS, they do not email or fax any documents and will not turn around or confirm /approve any correspondance before their stated 48 hours turnaround. An optomistic consequence of this is that it takes a full week for each issue to be resolved. They then state 10 working days from full approval of the file before

With 6 days to proposed completion our solicitors have just received 30 queries, we cannot meet our required completion date and missed the stamp duty holiday due to Countrywide.

Is someone at HSBC linked to Countrywide and getting rich off them because their performance and ability is so lacklustre that it will soon start costing them money in lost deals.

I would not reccomend HSBC/ Countrywide to my worst enemy.

I am now looking to get an alternative Mortgage provider and tell HSBC/Countrywide where to go!

pupsicle

I completely agree and hope to never have to deal with Countywide ever again!
Our vendor is using CC and we have had nothing but problems from day 1.
Sale was agreed early January, our solicitor is still waiting for a response to simple queries raised 1st Feb!
We stated from the beginning 23rd March was our preferred completion date (not for stamp duty reasons but due to rental contract, work commitments etc) and they have STILL not responded despite us asking numerous times if this will be possible. We have heard today from the EA that we will not be able to complete 23rd as his onward purchase are aiming to exchange 23rd and complete 30th - if EA has known this for weeks why could CC not tell us?
Honestly so fed up with the whole lot now starting to wish we hadn't bothered!|

glastolover

This is very odd. I am trying to buy a house with an HSBC mortgage and work out which solicitor to instruct. I don't understand why people are having a go at Countrywide Conveyancing as such - as I understand it they provide what they call the best quote from this HSBC panel of 43 (?) solicitors. I got a quote through them for a local solicitor, which is quite a reasonable price.

However, they will not publish this list of 43 solicitors. This seems downright non transparent and wrong to me.

As it happens, another solicitor (1st Property Lawyers) I got quoted on reallymoving.com are on the list and they mentioned this system to me. Countrywide confirmed that this solicitor is on the list. They also let me run through a list of solicitors that I got good quotes from on compareandconvey.com, though the cheapest 10 or so were not on the HSBC panel.

So if I go with 1st Property Lawyers, HSBC will not charge me their £190 extra charge, as they will instruct the same firm to act for them.

All seems very odd and murky, but I still don't understand why people in this thread are criticising Countrywide and not the individual solicitors from the panel with whom they are having issues.

The comments above (from yorkie and kingstreet) I think basically misunderstand the system. You do not choose Countrywide, they are not one of the 43, they are just a broker effectively. You choose a solicitor (probably the one Countrywide choose to quote you).

So those who have had problems "with Countrywide", it would be good to know which solicitors from the 43 you (or HSBC in case you went with your own) were actually using, because the fault is surely with them, not Countrywide.

Can anyone tell me this?

SuzieSue

glastolover wrote: »

This is very odd. I am trying to buy a house with an HSBC mortgage and work out which solicitor to instruct. I don't understand why people are having a go at Countrywide Conveyancing as such - as I understand it they provide what they call the best quote from this HSBC panel of 43 (?) solicitors. I got a quote through them for a local solicitor, which is quite a reasonable price.

However, they will not publish this list of 43 solicitors. This seems downright non transparent and wrong to me.

As it happens, another solicitor (1st Property Lawyers) I got quoted on reallymoving.com are on the list and they mentioned this system to me. Countrywide confirmed that this solicitor is on the list. They also let me run through a list of solicitors that I got good quotes from on compareandconvey.com, though the cheapest 10 or so were not on the HSBC panel.

So if I go with 1st Property Lawyers, HSBC will not charge me their £190 extra charge, as they will instruct the same firm to act for them.

All seems very odd and murky, but I still don't understand why people in this thread are criticising Countrywide and not the individual solicitors from the panel with whom they are having issues.

The comments above (from yorkie and kingstreet) I think basically misunderstand the system. You do not choose Countrywide, they are not one of the 43, they are just a broker effectively. You choose a solicitor (probably the one Countrywide choose to quote you).

So those who have had problems "with Countrywide", it would be good to know which solicitors from the 43 you (or HSBC in case you went with your own) were actually using, because the fault is surely with them, not Countrywide.

Can anyone tell me this?

As far as I understand it, the problem arises when none of the 43 on their panel is local to the purchaser and so they are forced to go with Countrywide or choose their own solicitor and pay £190 for Countrywide to act on HSBC's behalf.

betmunch

Countrywide are the panel manager for the 43 solicitors so they are responsible for the quality of the work the other firms produce, if they are not up to it they need removing.

Countrywide will do the work themselves if they have the capacity, or will send the work out to the panel.

Alternatively a client can pick one of the other 42 members.

As I see it most people are instructing their own solicitors and HSBC are forcing the client to pay for additional, unnecessary, work done to a very poor standard.

glastolover

Hmmmm. So you are saying that you either get a quote from CC to use one of the 43, or Countrywide themselves (who are actually a conveyancing solicitor themselves and also on the panel, perhaps the 44th?!).

Is that really right?

They quoted me to use a local solicitor (Fisher Jones Greenwood), and Googling them they look OK and have some good reviews, so do you think I would be OK using them? If I instruct them, HSBC will also use them, so CC should not be involved as far as I am understanding now?

This whole system is at best very poorly explained/understood by customers and at worse downright wrong and should be illegal. I just want to be able to use one of the ones I got a good quote from on compareandconvey.com, who it would seem (funnily enough) would be ~£150 cheaper than the HSBC mandated firm. I bet that is always the case so you don't feel inclined to pay the £190 fee. It sounds like this route is a recipe for disaster as it gets another solicitor involved, probably CC.

Trouble is, the HSBC mortgage deal is significantly better than any other lender, so I do want to use them...

Would appreciate if someone can confirm that if I instruct my local solicitor who CC quoted, that CC will not be involved and so I should be OK.

I don't understand why the solicitor has to be local ref another earlier post - it is all done on phone/email nowadays anyway, so it doesn't matter where the solicitor is, surely?

Sorry for long rambling posts!

SuzieSue

glastolover wrote: »

I don't understand why the solicitor has to be local ref another earlier post - it is all done on phone/email nowadays anyway, so it doesn't matter where the solicitor is, surely?

Many people prefer to use local solicitors when buying as they are more likely to have local knowledge about flooding etc which you cant' always get from the normal searches you pay for.

Have you tried First Direct, their rates seem to be similar to HSBC's?