HSBC forcing us to use their own legal services?

captainpants

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with HSBC:


Partner and I have recently had a remortgage approved by HSBC (yay). Our broker advised us that we needed to use a conveyancer that was on the HSBC recommended panel. We chose to do this rather than use HSBC's own conveyancer and were happy to pay conveyancing fees to our own solicitor instead of getting HSBC's legal service for free (I'm a big advocate of the 'you get what you pay for' concept).


I just received a call from LMS who are the conveyancers for HSBC who told me that apparently we either use them for conveyancing and not have to pay or use our own solicitor and also have to pay for HSBC's conveyancing costs with LMS.


!!!!!!??


Our broker didn't tell us this was the deal and he's pretty good at what he does so I don't think this is an oversight on his part. I think they're trying it on. The CSR told me she would refer the query back to HSBC and they will contact me but has anyone else had any experience of this?

amnblog

It's fairly common for Lenders to insist that you use their panel on a free conveyancing deal.

Do they have an alternate cash back deal that you can switch to?

MoneyGeoff

Something similar happened to me with HSBC. I got most of the way through the conveyancing process and they said that despite my solicitor being accredited I had to have additional steps done by their own conveyancer. It was related to the size of the mortgage and the size of my solicitors firm (he was a one man band).

They charged me for a lot of optional conveyancing steps so after completion I kicked up a fuss about not being told this in advance and they refunded me the charges for all optional steps carried out by their conveyancer.

captainpants

amnblog - I'm happy to use a solicitor on their panel and I have done. The firm I am using are a local firm but a decent size (not a one man band). I don't understand why we have to pay their fees for a separate conveyancer as well. This was not how it was explained to me by my broker.


MoneyGeoff - Glad to hear you kicked up a stink. I intend to as well.

Thrugelmir

captainpants wrote: »

We chose to do this rather than use HSBC's own conveyancer and were happy to pay conveyancing fees to our own solicitor instead of getting HSBC's legal service for free (I'm a big advocate of the 'you get what you pay for' concept).

If you didn't use one of HSBC's panel solicitors that is part of the free legals on offer. You'd still need to use a solicitor on their panel approved list. By choosing one outside of the panel. HSBC will wish to protect their interests.

The point at issue is that the solicitor doesn't just work for you but the lender. Happens to be that you pick up the lenders costs.

debtisnotme

Thrugelmir wrote: »

If you didn't use one of HSBC's panel solicitors that is part of the free legals on offer. You'd still need to use a solicitor on their panel approved list. By choosing one outside of the panel. HSBC will wish to protect their interests.

The point at issue is that the solicitor doesn't just work for you but the lender. Happens to be that you pick up the lenders costs.

They did use a solicitor from the approved list!

Thrugelmir

debtisnotme wrote: »

They did use a solicitor from the approved list!

Ah!

What's written in the small print. LMS obviously will lose business. Perhaps there's a deal struck on the volume of cases processed.