HSBC mortgages - your experiences please

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HSBC offered us the best rate but we have read mixed reviews about them online. Could you please share your experiences?
Thank you!

No issues all worked well for us.

I found them very good during the mortgage application and throughout

Great. They are very ‘thorough’ and the approvals do take a good while. We have a portable mortgage with them via a broker which is great. Only disappointment we felt was that 25 years of banking with them seemed to count for nothing.

Been great for us. Very helpful when we had a difficult time.

We've been really happy with our HSBC mortgage. It's easy to manage online. My only word of advice is if you change mortgage product with them after your fixed rate download your statements from banking first. It disappears from your accounts list the minute the old one is settled so you can't check anything.

I have had 2 or 3 mortgages with HSBC over the years and never any complaints at all, in fact they have been really good I think.

I use them and no issues.

I had real issues with them after being approved in principle. The whole process took months and I nearly lost the house. My complaint was treated appallingly and the complaints department were a joke.

It was approved in the end and because of worrying about losing the house, I still went with them. In fact, I was not a new customer and have been a banking customer for 20+ years and a mortgage customer for 15. Never an issue in the past.

My fixed rate is up in September and I vowed I'd never use them again. But with the current climate I think it may be less stressful to just see what they offer as pressumeably it will be just a matter of switching (was in previous property). With everything going on I am not sure I can deal with an application/approval saga.

But I'm still furious! Honestly, the bloke on the phone was so rude to me. The amount of hours on the phone chasing the application and the constant lying as to where they were with the application was one of the most stressful times of my life. And my life over the past 10 years has been like a soap opera .

I gave up with them as it took so many months and had so many issues with their online system. I went with the Coventry instead, who were fantastic, and got a far better deal than with HSBC.

No complaints

No problems with them.

We had a bad experience with them despite also having been customers for 20 years. We had an in branch appointment for a decision in principle and then applied by phone a month later to proceed with the application. The application on the phone took about 2-3 hours and right at the end they offered us £40k less than the decision in principle. The whole phone application felt like a test and like they were trying to catch me out with my answers and trip me up. They were surprised we didn't want to proceed with the application and helpfully suggested we ''just increase our deposit to cover the shortfall". Needless to say we found a broker who secured us a mortgage with NatWest.

Had issues porting a mortgage this year and resulted in compensation. Would it stop me using them again once my rate comes to an end probably not. The complaints department were great and their online capability is good

No problems, quick, easy, no issues whatsoever.

Had a truly horrific experience in which they fannied around for months on end and made huge numbers of errors - the most impressive of which was sending us all of the mortgage paperwork for the wrong house. However when we made an almightily big complaint they treated it extremely seriously and did give us a proper apology which included quite a lot of wine! We stuck with them because we desperately wanted the house and didn't want to risk losing it. This was 6 years ago and they've been OK since then.

Agree with a PP who said that long standing customer loyalty means nothing to them - I've been an HSBC customer since I was 8 years old (Griffin Saver at the Midland Bank!) but they don't give a damn.

Really easy and smooth process, but I used a broker which didn't cost me anything and who got me the same rate I could get for myself so the 'advantage' to me was that I never needed to apply directly and answer all the q's.

We had been mortgage and banking customers with HSBC since the 1990s, but when we moved a few years ago they wouldn't give us what we wanted. I think it was possibly an over-zealous interpretation of the newish rules that had come in then.

We went elsewhere via a broker, got a far better deal and won't go back.

The process was horrific last time, took months and they ended up giving out the wrong money to us. Had to complain and we ended up £3k up!

They do generally offer the best rates, I would consider them but only through a broker who can deal with the hassle. They pass you from pillar to post.

Ridiculously slow, but that was 2 years ago. Ended up paying us £200 compensation to apologise.

We had a mortgage in principle with them but decided not to go with them because they didn’t take CB into account as income, whereas others did. They said it was because I wouldn’t have it in 18 years. Well no - I might not have other elements of income, or debt, or outgoings or incomings in 18 years 🤷🏻‍♀️ It added 2.5k a year annually to my income so wanted it included. We went with Santander via London and Country.

My first mortgage was with them years ago and at that point I had no issues whatsoever:

No problems with getting mortgage, good service
However, over the last 13 years of being with them they have been completely inflexible. Wouldn't swap to interest only for a short period due to redundancy, wouldn't offer payment break of only 3 months due to being off work with serious illness
So, I'd never use them again and after lockdown will be looking to swap to someone else
But these may not be factors for you