Possible retaliation by HSBC mortgage advisor?

starkiwi26

Dear fellow members, hope you have a good Christmas and New Year.

I have a mortgage with HSBC for nearly 5 years, never miss a payment. My current mortgage fixed rate is about to expire, so I asked HSBC for an appointment to move my mortgage to new fixed rate and to borrow more (take advantage of recent property price increase).
HSBC arranged a mortgage advisor to me and advised me that the advisor would call me in advance to discuss my need as usual. Few hours later, I received below email from the mortgage advisor,



And, the mortgage advisor also called me from a mobile number 079xxxxxxx at 7pm, but I was making my dinner and missed the call. He then texted me below.

"Hi it's XXX from HSBC, could you give me a call PLEASE"

the next day, another text

"Hi it's XXX from HSBC, could you give me a call TODAY (Friday) PLEASE"

I am a sensitive guy, but I am not comfortable with BOLDED, RED, EXTRA LARGE TEXTS in the email and SMS. It means shouting and screaming at me.

I called HSBC, politely request to change a mortgage advisor please. I didnt complain about the above advisor, probably this is just the way he communicate with people.

HSBC changed an advisor for me and advised the new advisor would call me in advance to discuss my needs. To my surprise, I didnt receive any email nor call me from the mortgage advisor. Only by the appointment time, the new advisor was late 5 min before he called me from a "unknown number" to discuss my needs and he found that I was well prepared with all required documents ready. Then only he hanged up and called me from a "HSBC recorded call" to proceed with mortgage advise. Because I was well prepared, the process was easy and finished in 40min and submitted the application.

The current property value was set at £171k, this was what estimated by HSBC system.



2 days later, I received a call from an "unknown number". The lady claimed to be a property valuer from HSBC, and asked to access my house for property valuing next week.

I was quite surprise for the property valuation. With Covid Omicron cases soaring, I really didnt want to allow people to come into my house because I have a pregnant woman and 80 years old parents with me.

It is well within the bank's right to do the valuation on my property, but for the last 5 years with HSBC mortgage, I never miss a payment, and I did 2 times to changed fixed rate and borrow more from HSBC estimated property value, and there were no property valuation required. So, why now? How usual would bank do a new property valuation when the property value was the figure given by their bank system estimation?

After doing some google, I can see I am in a bad situation because best case scenario is the property valuer maintains the HSBC estimated property value, bad scenario is the property valuer gives a much lower property value.

a) While I cannot prove anything, but I smell something fishy behind HSBC, probably I offended someone when I request to change mortgage advisor?

b) As a contingency plan, I may have to change HSBC mortgage fixed rate WITHOUT borrow more. By doing so, I can do the fixed rate change online myself, therefore I should not require a mortgage advisor and property valuation.

c) As a contingency plan 2,I will try to contact mortgage broker next week to see if I can get another mortgage deal as a backup.

Any thought are very welcomed please! 

[Deleted User]

There's nothing fishy and no retaliation.

If you wish to use another lender, then you can do that.

getmore4less

How much extra are you trying to borrow?

Will it move LTV range

Estimates

£171.xk value(61% LTV)
£104.3k Current
£119.7k 70% +£15.5k
£128.3k 75% +£24.0k
£136.8k 80% +£32.5k

K_S

@starkiwi26 Other than poor processes and a questionable font/formatting choice, I don't see much out of the ordinary with regard to bank mortgage advice  

If you are raising capital and have to go through the whole process anyways, might be worth checking to see if you can get a better deal overall by moving to another lender.

csgohan4

One reason why i use a broker and not use HSBC either. These appointments used to be 2-3 hours sometimes. I don't that time to waste. Time is money

Just send my KFI to my broker and they give me the best deals job done

BornTooHula

Well that big red text is overkill isn't it!

DCFC79

csgohan4 said:

One reason why i use a broker and not use HSBC either. These appointments used to be 2-3 hours sometimes. I don't that time to waste. Time is money

Just send my KFI to my broker and they give me the best deals job done

OP why dont you do this.
Any reason why your staying with HSBC?

Thrugelmir

If you wish to borrow more money then you need to accept the banks terms. It's as basic as that. If you don't like the way that HSBC do business change lenders. Complaining is pointless. 

elsien

BornTooHula said:

Well that big red text is overkill isn't it!

It is, but I’m not sure it entirely merits the subsequent reactions from the OP with regards to retaliation etc. 

dunstonh

This may be an issue with FCA interpretations.    There was a best practice guide issued to firms some time back that said that the use of red text or bolded text to highlight risk warnings and important information was a good idea.

Alternatively, it could be because HSBC's colour scheme incorporates red.

What they have done here is not highlight risk warnings or concerns but action points.  Probably as they are fed up of people not doing those things.  i.e. get to the meeting to find they haven't done something requested in the video.

I haven't done the HSBC video but it may include risk warnings, compliance warnings etc. 

starkiwi26

getmore4less said:

How much extra are you trying to borrow?

Will it move LTV range

Estimates

£171.xk value(61% LTV)
£104.3k Current
£119.7k 70% +£15.5k
£128.3k 75% +£24.0k
£136.8k 80% +£32.5k

I asked for 90%, because I wanted to do wall insulation, kitchen extension, conservatory and etc...
Probably this is the reason to trigger property valuation then..
Could I call HSBC to say, may be reduce to 85% or 80%, to avoid the property valuation? It is just not a good time with covid going on currently...