Agents are already advising clients that if they go to HSBC for a mortgage, they could experience long conveyancing delays.
But HSBC is by no means the only offender, conveyancing expert Peter Ambrose warns.
Indeed, he names one lender that he reckons could make things even worse.
Get up to speed with his blog on EAT today.
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Comments
Read all the reviews HSBC its really quite shocking
http://www.reviewcentre.com/Mortgage-Lenders/HSBC-Mortgage-review_1522246
HSBC offer very competitive rates and I have banked with them for years. So to choose my mortgage with them was an easy decision. In hind site I wish I had gone elsewhere. Any monies saved over the next 5 years has gone up front. HSBC use their own solicitors which you have to pay towards. Three months ago my solicitor sent over everything that was requested I asked my mortgage advisor if they had everything. Yes he said although I do need a completion date which I gave. For the past month and a half I have asked them to confirm they have everything. Every few days they decide they want something else. After telling me they have everything more than several times.
I have had to have searches re-done, due to them not having the required information. The joke goes on and on. Even the HSBC mortgage advisor says this is Parr for the course, or business as usual. Shame he did not tell me this when I first enquired. Due to an HSBC error I was not entitled to the January sale... they first made me talk to an unqualified mortgage advisor who gave me great rate that I couldn't have... my first HSBC complaint. Cost £250 using HSBC solicitors who are useless £250. Charge from my solicitors for HSBC messing around £300. I may still potentially lose my flat as the seller is worried I am messing around. The hold up is purely HSBC solicitors.
My advise DO NOT USE HSBC MORTGAGE. I WILL COST MORE OVER THE FIRST 3-5 YEARS. WITH MONEY OUT UPFRONT.
HSBC are by far the worst in lending and getting the deal through. Fact!
Whilst Rob's comments are (as always) well intentioned, I am afraid that the answer actually lies in something in one of Margaret Thatcher's mantras, and a nursery rhyme.
(This is of course, extremely painful for me to quote That Woman, but I'll get over it)
1. "You can't buck the market".
2. "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put [Humpty] together again.
The reality is that this problem has been brewing for years and no regulator or trade association has been able to do anything about it to date. As I have said on numerous occasions, it would take a brave lender to take the first step, and HSBC has stepped into the breach.
The reality is that in the future, lenders will, inevitably, end up choosing their lawyers to represent them, and this can't come soon enough for us.
Let's face it - in what other area of professional service would an advisor represent two parties at the same time?
Peter’s blog is, perhaps unintentionally, a little misleading. It may seem that lenders are trying to control the conveyancing market but that action has, to some degree, been forced upon them. The FSA insists that lenders manage and monitor the firms on their conveyancing panels more closely in order to reduce risk and reduce mortgage fraud. However, the way some lenders have gone about this leaves a lot to be desired.
Separate Representation as a solution, is not under threat and it is likely it will always be available. What is under threat is the number of firms that can act for the lender. The problem with that is the fewer firms the less choice if some of them are inefficient (as is the case with HSBC).
This problem is not going to go away; it simply needs much better handing. The CML, BSA, all major lenders, property lawyers (perhaps represented by the Law Society, the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, the Conveyancing Association and the Bold Legal Group) and others involved in the home buying and selling process, including the consumer, need to agree a common efficient way forward that will reduce risk, stop transaction costs increasing, keep transaction speeds up and stress levels to an absolute minimum.
What we have at the moment is a hotchpotch of solutions, none of which seem to be working particularly well.