My horrible HSBC experience.
I've been with HSBC for more than 4 years now and never had any problem, except once when I've been to India on holiday and they blocked my debit card, had to make a transcontinental phone call to get it reactivated.
Anyway, my biggest trouble started when I decided to get a mortgage from them.
Found this property in June but I was unlucky, it was sold one week after to another buyer. Had fixed an appointment with them in the meantime and when they told me the property was gone, I phoned HSBC asking if we could still go ahead with the appointment, so that I could gather more information about getting a mortgage. So far so good. Before the appointment I decided to use their mortgage calculator on their website that was telling me I could borrow up to 120k. Good, I was looking for a shared ownership property within this range, adding of course my savings to it.
I attended the fixed appointment in the hope of getting a quotation. We went through my income, my payslips, my expenses and so on, and the agent told me maximum I could borrow was 54k, half of what I initially thought. I started to feel a bit disheartned but to my surprise the agent was able to give a so called 'mortgage certificate', which means I could show it to any seller showing them that my bank was behind me all the way. Although the amount was less than I expected at least I had the certainty of HSBC lending me the money I needed for a purchase.
I started to look for a property within my new range, I found the one that I wanted to buy at the beginning of July. I viewed the flat, I liked it a lot and decided to pay £350 to the housing association for a formal reservation that would keep the house off the market. So I reserved. At the association they asked to get everything lined up as soon as possible, so I called a solicitor who accepted to handle my case and I called HSBC.
I fixed an appointment with them again, 12 days later!!! I should have understood at the time that that was the beginning of a terrible experience. After 12 days nervous wait, I attended the meeting with the mortgage manager, I showed her all the documentation requested and even more. She told me that all in all, it would take, in the worst case scenario, a maximum of 10 days for the application to be processed by their central branch. Well, 10 days looked like a reasonable amount of time. No???
I waited for them to contact me and after 12 days, with not even a 5 second phone call from them, I decided to go to the local branch, where I applied (half mile away from where I actually live). It was a Friday, they asked to leave my details and somebody would have called before their office was closed. To my despair, nothing happened. So I decided to try again the following, once again they took my details telling me that somebody would call me as soon as possible, for sure. Nothing happened. I went to the branch again the day after and I told them that I wouldn't have left the branch if they didn't let me talk to the mortgage manager, who I found out was out for some kind of external job. I went back home and I wrote a complaint on their website and only at this point, they botherd lift the phone and give me a call.
The manager told that she would fasttrack the application, even because I told them I've given the notice on my rented property. After a week of short phone calls, with no useful information, she told me on Monday last week that apparently they were still processing the application and to complete it I had to sign and send back some forms that she would have sent me the same day, on Monday. After a week, in spite of the bank being half mile away, and the postoffice is there too, I haven't received anything. Until this morning, I received some forms stating that I accept all of their conditions to go ahead with my application. As I'm hugely fed up, I decided I won't sign anything and I actually called today a private financial advisor whose number was given to me by the housing association I'm buying the flat with. They reassured me that they can do the job in 2 weeks. Thanks God!
I must say the people at the housing association have been lovely, I kept them updated about my HSBC disadventure and they were very supportive and still haven't put the property on sale, in spite of the fact that my reservation is long expired, because they said it's not my fault and they have been told today by my financial advisor that HSBC is messing with hundreds of people.
Hopefully, I get everything done in a couple of weeks and I'll move into my new home soon. I wasted 5 weeks of my life, chasing HSBC up and down. I swear, when everything will be sorted, the first step I'll take must be closing my bank account with them. And I really hope they come to eat in the restaurant that I manage, I'm going to treat them in the same 'professional' way!!!
Sorry, it's very long but I'm too upset!