HSBC remortgage legal advice

Pongo77

I am in the process of re-mortgaging with HSBC, they are also my current lender I am just fixing the rate.


The are telling me that I have to take independent legal advice regarding the mortgage contract and have a solicitor sign a document for them to that effect.


The solicitors are not doing any conveyancing work or assigning the property it is just purely legal advice regarding the contract in which I will be bound.


My understanding is that without this they are refusing to lend so they are in effect forcing me to spend a considerable sum on advice I don't believe I need. ( I am an accountant and deal with this type of stuff everyday)


Has anyone else had this issue with HSBC or any other bank?


Does anyone know if this is legal?


Thanks


Ian

Thrugelmir

Pongo77 wrote: »

I am in the process of re-mortgaging with HSBC, they are also my current lender I am just fixing the rate.


The are telling me that I have to take independent legal advice regarding the mortgage contract and have a solicitor sign a document for them to that effect.


The solicitors are not doing any conveyancing work or assigning the property it is just purely legal advice regarding the contract in which I will be bound.


My understanding is that without this they are refusing to lend so they are in effect forcing me to spend a considerable sum on advice I don't believe I need. ( I am an accountant and deal with this type of stuff everyday)


Has anyone else had this issue with HSBC or any other bank?


Does anyone know if this is legal?


Thanks


Ian

"Remortgaging" involves a new contract. "Fixing the rate" doesn't as it's merely a product switch.

Which are you actually doing?

Pongo77

Just a product switch, my understanding is that they will discharge the old contract and set-up a new one. even so I feel that their requirement that I have to take legal advice is not right. I understand there is a requirement if you are guaranteeing another parties borrowing, I am not doing this.

pinkteapot

Weird. We remortgaged to HSBC from Santander last August. We would normally have had to pay for their conveyancing but they had an offer on and covered the legal costs themselves.

There was never any mention of us having to have taken legal advice before signing the contract.

However, we applied online. Their online applications are completely different to their phone/in-branch ones. There was a lot of small print about online being completely unadvised, and so we were responsible for making our own decisions, blah blah blah.

If we'd applied by phone or in-branch, it would have been an 'advised' application. Maybe in that case they'd have insisted we take independent advice before signing. How did you apply?

Our case may have been different because it was a remortgage to them so some conveyancing was done, and maybe it included the solicitor advising us... Not that they did that!

Pongo77

Thanks pinkteapot. We were advised but even at that we were not changing the overall nature of our contract, just the rate. I have email them and asked for clarification but I have not heard back yet.