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

law111

This company has taken incompetence to a higher level. You pay them over £1400 for conveyancing, far higher than others, thinking you will get a better service, but a shocking service. Can't get to speak to the lawyer handling your case, have to chase them up every time to act. too much headache. Pls don't use them.

usedtobetter

dealing with countrywide conveyancing i am reminded of the Carlsberg advert "probably the finest" sadly for the opposite reasons they are without doubt an absolute nightmare! months go by and still the same inane queries arise, who are they working for? are we dealing with imbeciles. What is it all about!!

bouncerbloke

I've just found this forum after doing a search on Google for countywide conveyancing and noticed the dates some of these posts were made on!
Fast forward 3 years and it looks like cc are still as bad. We have been trying to deal with these people now for about 3 months and this morning received an email from them asking for details that were provided at the very start of the process!! They have sent important, personal, legal documents to the wrong address (3 times) and have lost numerous documents and asked for us to resend them 'ASAP to avoid further delay' as though it was our fault (all our documents go recorded delivery).
Look up incompetent in the dictionary and you'll find a big picture of Countrywide Conveyancing!!!!!
Avoid these people at ALL costs

charlamine

Our buyers are using them! Absolute shambles! We are 19 weeks in on a chain free process.

They lose paperwork, ask the same stupid questions over again, some of the questions border on ridiculous. All last week that told us they were waiting for buyers deposit to arrive, never occurred to them them to call the buyer who at the end of the week said we haven't transferred our deposit as we have not received our completion statement despite countrywide having sent it,

The whole thing has been so stressful, I would actually never sell to anyone using countrywide again.

Although to be frank my local solicitors haven't been much better!!

lisharvey36

i agree!!Like many it seems I've had problems with countrywide conveyancing also!! The buyers of my property have been advised to use them by their lovely mortgage advisor (first time buyers) so have fallen for the silly sales pitch.
The house sale has dragged out for 12 weeks now and still counting ..was meant to exchange 2 weeks ago .Then it changed to Friday then it turned to Tuesday !!now their saying my solicitor hasn't sent over documentation... which he did 10 weeks ago clear(and they have lost) and I still don't have a completion date!!ive had many stressful phone calls with my Solicitor and estate agents now and it s getting me down.....countrywide conveyancing employees are a bunch of incompetent, liars ..stay well clear!!had I have know how bad they were before I would refused to sell with the buyers using them.

Rogueelement

Well I'm 5 months in and still no exchange of contracts. They are a total disaster, sadly our buyer is using Countrywide. It should be an easy process, no mortgage our side and no mortgage on our buyers side. This Company should be investigated and shut down, they are utterly incompetent in everything they do. I only wish I had found this forum after a week of selling and not 3 months cause I would definitely have pulled out of dealing with Countrywide. I think my Solicitors have given up chasing them and now it's down to our estate agents to try and sort. So stressful, really had enough and just feel like giving up and losing the house we have purchased and write off all the costs involved and start again.

charliewocka

Our vendor used Countrywide. Was a nightmare. When our offer was instructed he was using a local firm and this got changed to CW along the line (think the EA influenced them a little bit).


Our (local) solicitor was great, really on the ball, but CW were so slow. Asking for evidence which had already been sent (and acknowledged by them), muddling things around, impossible to get hold of. At one stage we were so desperate we considered asking the vendor if he would move to a local solicitors firm and we would contribute to fees as the service was shocking. We were told we could exchange on a Friday which was NOT what we wanted. On exchange/completion day (we did a simultaneous transaction as were releasing equity from our BTL) we got a panicked call from our solicitor telling us transaction not going ahead as CW had not asked for the ID of the power of attorney who was selling the house on his uncles behalf.


If transaction wasn't completed by Monday afternoon funds would have to be released back to the lender and couldn't be recalled for 10 days. Solicitor was fuming as this should have been checked on initial stages of the process and some VERY angry phone calls were made. We managed to get the vendor (uncle) to drive over 100 miles that weekend to produce ID to the EA who sent to CW and JUST managed to scrape the transaction through. Our solicitor actually said to us she wishes we had exchanged earlier and could then sue for expenses to pi** them off and teach CW a lesson!


If we bought/sold again we would insist that the other party do NOT use them and wouldn't entertain an offer from any party using them.

deadhead02

I used these without checking ANY references - what a terrible mistake. Emailing or calling was a total waste of time as no-one knew anything, and I rarely received replies in any case. My allocated solicitor was ok so we did limp to the finish line. Since moving in I have had huge problems with the way the vendors left the property and countrywide have been worse than useless. E.g. I told them a building had been removed and received a (rare) reply saying someone had checked the details and there was no mention of leaving garden furniture. You could not make up their utter incompetence.
They are expensive, and useless. I was told one could have 24/7 access to updates online but the system never worked for me despite many complaints
STRONGLY ADVISE TO AVOID THIS COMPANY


If you don't believe me read the reviews here:
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Reviews/Countrywide_Property_Lawyers__5658256/Start/15

Rogueelement

Finally after 7 months we gave up with our buyer who was using Countrywide. We put our place back on the market at extra 10k and sold straight away.

mrj6j

I put a post on here in March but my god, the flood gates remain fully open regarding Countrywide!


I think your post signifies the absolute horror of using such a company and it is people like yourself, who need to get the message to others and let them decide what they do. I have had some words of caution though on other sites about the legal issues of what people are saying but I think it is right to state what service you have had when all you wanted was smooth running. You are paying thousands for a service that actually does you no good at all.


I have taken my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman and sadly, they did not look at or consider all the information I gave them so they said that Countrywide did nothing wrong in my instance and that all advice given to me was good. NO IT WAS NOT! So I am still fighting.


Keep informing others of the service you have had with this company and make it clear that we the paying customers are not fools and that we should be treated with respect, we know what type of service we expect.


Maybe one day, we can post something positive about Countrywide. Maybe!