How conveyancing works with HSBC

When you buy your first home, you’ll be responsible for choosing your own solicitor or licensed conveyancer. If you choose a solicitor, you need to make sure they're specialist property lawyers and agree the cost of legal work with them. Once you've chosen your solicitor or licensed conveyancer, we’ll check to make sure they can act for you and HSBC.

Make sure you check this table for the basic requirements for a solicitor to be able to act for us, as well as you. If they don't meet our criteria, we’ll have to choose a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for us and you'll have to pay for them.

The firm must be registered with one of the following:

• Solicitors Regulation Authority (and must be accredited with The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme)
• The Law Society of Scotland
• The Law Society of Northern Ireland
• The Council for Licenced Conveyancers

All firms must have a minimum professional indemnity insurance cover of £2 million, and for lending over £2 million they must have professional indemnity insurance of £5 million.

• Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regulated firms must be Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) accredited.
• All Council of Licensed Conveyancer (CLC) regulated firms can act for HSBC.

• All Scottish and Northern Ireland regulated solicitors can act for HSBC.

In all cases, our due diligence checks and lending criteria apply.

Choose your conveyancer – Buyers and sellers each instruct their chosen conveyancers to act for them.

Property searches – As part of the legal work, your conveyancer will carry out searches on the property to make sure there are no other factors you should be aware of. These include local authority, flood risk and water authority searches.

Contract draft - The seller’s conveyancer prepares a draft contract, which gets sent to the buyer’s conveyancer. The buyer’s conveyancer then checks the contract, the mortgage offer and if any other legal work is required.

Help to Buy: ISA – Tell your conveyancer if you’ve opened a Help to Buy: ISA. They’ll be responsible for claiming 25% government bonus. You should also let your ISA provider know that you're closing the account.

Signing contracts - Your conveyancer will ask you to sign the contract and discuss with you any other costs payable, such as stamp duty. Then they'll agree a date with the other party to complete the sale/purchase of the property. At this stage, you'll need to send the deposit to your solicitor.

Exchanging contracts – Your conveyancer will then exchange contracts with the seller’s conveyancer and pay any deposits. At this stage, you’re legally committed to purchase the property.

Completion – If you had a Help to Buy: ISA, the government will pay the bonus to your conveyancer. They'll add it to your funds at completion. Once you've agreed your completion date, your conveyancer will ask us for the mortgage advance and send the funds to the seller’s conveyancer. When the seller’s conveyancer confirms they've received all the money that's due, the seller should drop the keys at the estate agent for your collection.

After completion – Your conveyancer will pay any stamp duty due to HMRC for you. They'll also apply to register your ownership of the property with the Land Registry. Once registration is complete, they'll confirm this back to you.

Conveyancing in Scotland and Northern Ireland works differently compared to England and Wales. If you’re buying or selling a property in either Scotland or Northern Ireland, you need to take legal advice as early as possible.

According to the MoneyHelper, legal fees can range from £850 to £1,500 including VAT. Local property searches are typically around £250 to £300, on top of the legal fees.

In England and Wales, the conveyancing process can take up to 12 weeks, on average, to complete. However, it could take longer if it’s a complex mortgage or you're part of a chain.

When you buy or sell property, you’ll be responsible for choosing your own solicitor or licensed conveyancer. If you choose a solicitor, you need to make sure they are specialist property lawyers and agree the cost of legal work. Once you've chosen your solicitor or licensed conveyancer, we’ll check to make sure they can act for you and HSBC. 

Make sure you check below for the basic requirements for a solicitor to be able to act for HSBC, as well as you. If they don't meet our criteria, we’ll have to choose a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for us and you'll have to pay for them.

The firm must be registered with one of the following:

• Solicitors Regulation Authority (and must be accredited with The Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme)
• The Law Society of Scotland
• The Law Society of Northern Ireland
• The Council for Licenced Conveyancers

All firms must have a minimum professional indemnity insurance cover of £2 million and for lending over £2 million, they must have professional indemnity insurance of £5 million.

• Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) regulated firms must be Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) accredited.
• All Council of Licensed Conveyancer (CLC) regulated firms can act for HSBC.

• All Scottish and Northern Ireland regulated solicitors can act for HSBC.

In all cases, our due diligence checks and lending criteria apply.

Choose your conveyancer – Buyers and sellers each instruct their chosen conveyancers to act for them.

Property searches – As part of the legal work, your conveyancer will carry out searches on the property to ensure there are no other factors you should be aware of. These include local authority, flood risk and water authority searches.

Contract draft - The seller’s conveyancer prepares a draft contract, which gets sent to the buyer’s conveyancer. The buyer’s conveyancer then checks the contract, the mortgage offer and any other relevant documents such as redemption statement from your existing lender.

Signing contracts - Your conveyancer will ask you to sign the contract, discuss any other amounts you will need to pay (such as stamp duty and early repayment charges). A date is agreed to complete the sale/purchase of the property. At this stage, you'll need to send the deposit to your solicitor.

Exchanging contracts – the buyer’s conveyancer will exchange contracts with the seller’s conveyancer. Any deposit will be paid and at this stage you’re legally committed to purchase the property.

Completion – Once you’ve agreed your completion date, your conveyancer will ask us for the mortgage advance and send the funds to the seller’s conveyancer. Once the seller’s conveyancer confirms that they have received all the money that's due, the seller should drop the keys at the estate agent for your collection.

After completion – Your conveyancer will pay for you any stamp duty due to HMRC. They will also apply to register your ownership of the property with the Land Registry. Once registration is complete, they will confirm this back to you.

According to the MoneyHelper, legal fees can range from £850 to £1,500 including VAT. Local property searches are typically around £250 to £300, on top of the legal fees.

In England and Wales, the conveyancing process can take up to 12 weeks, on average, to complete. However, it could take longer if it’s a complex mortgage.

If you want to move your mortgage to us, you'll need remortgage conveyancing.

At HSBC, you may have the option of choosing a bank appointed panel solicitor or licensed conveyancer where the standard legal fees are covered by us.

Or

You may be able to appoint your own solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for us both, as long as they meet our criteria. You’ll pay all the legal fees for this.

If any additional legal work is required, you will be responsible for these costs.

We’ll instruct the solicitor or licensed conveyancer once your application has been agreed. In most cases, the conveyancing process is quicker than if you’re buying or selling a property.

Case accepted – The conveyancer chosen by us receives the instruction to start preliminary work.

Mortgage offer issued – We'll issue the formal mortgage offer to you and the conveyancer we've instructed to act on the case.

Confirmed legal title – The conveyancer gets official copies of the property register from the Land Registry or the title deeds if your property is unregistered to confirm ownership of the property and whether there are any existing mortgages on the property.

Questionnaire – This is key to the legal work starting, so you should complete it as soon as possible.

Customer identification check – The conveyancer is required by the legislation to verify your identity. This is in addition to the checks carried out by your lender. The checks may be electronic or you may have to provide copies of certain documents.

Mortgage deed – The conveyancer receives your signed mortgage deed.

Redemption statement – The conveyancer will ask your existing mortgage lender to provide a current redemption statement to confirm the outstanding amount of your loan with them. Your existing lender may charge for this, so you should check with them.

Request for funds submitted – When all the legal work is completed, the conveyancer will ask us to release the funds. They'll give you a completion statement to confirm any additional fees you need to pay, as well as the proposed completion date.

Completion - The transaction completes. Your existing mortgage is repaid and your new mortgage starts with HSBC. You'll get a letter from us with details of your new repayments.

After completion - Our conveyancer registers the new mortgage with the Land Registry and ensures your old mortgage is removed from their records. It may take some time to update the title register to reflect the new mortgage.

If you choose a bank appointed solicitor, we'll appoint a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for us and pay for the standard legal work done by them.

Even if the legal fees for changing your mortgage are paid for by us, you may need to pay some legal fees yourself in certain circumstances, for example if you want to add or remove someone from the mortgage. A full breakdown of costs will be provided by the solicitor or licensed conveyancer in advance.

In England and Wales, the conveyancing process for a remortgage takes between 4 and 8 weeks on average to complete.

Delays can be caused by issues that need further investigation, such as a change of property ownership, consent from third parties or a delay in getting a redemption statement from your existing lender.

If you own a property outright and want to release funds, you can apply for a homeowner loan. HSBC requires a first legal charge for all mortgage borrowing and this will be arranged as part of the application process.

Yes. If you want to release funds, a solicitor or licensed conveyancer is still required.

At HSBC, you may have the option of choosing a bank appointed panel solicitor or licensed conveyancer where the standard legal fees are covered by us.

Or

You may be able to appoint your own solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for us both, as long as they meet our criteria. You’ll pay all the legal fees for this.

If any additional legal work is required, you will be responsible for these costs.

We'll instruct the conveyancer once your application has been agreed. In most cases, the conveyancing process is quicker than if you’re buying or selling a property. 

If you choose a bank appointed panel solicitor or licensed conveyancer, we will instruct either LMS or Optima legal. Both provide online portals you can use to track the progress of your legal work, complete your remortgage questionnaire and download the legal documents you'll need to sign. You'll get an initial welcome email and text message explaining how to register for their portal. You can also get text message updates at key stages of the legal process.

If you want to add or remove a name on the mortgage, Legal Marketing Services ltd (LMS) will represent HSBC and you'll also need your own legal representation. You're responsible for all legal costs for the extra borrowing and change of ownership and you can either:

• also appoint LMS or Optima Legal to act for you, or
• appoint your own solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for you.

Case accepted – LMS gets the instruction to start preliminary work.

Mortgage offer issued – We'll issue the formal mortgage offer to you and LMS.

Confirmed legal title – LMS gets official copies of the property register from the Land Registry, or the title deeds if your property is unregistered, to confirm ownership of the property and whether there are any existing mortgages on it.

Questionnaire – This is key to the legal work starting, so you should complete it as soon as possible.

Customer identification check – LMS is required by the legislation to verify your identity. This is in addition to the checks carried out by your lender. The checks may be electronic or you may have to provide copies of certain documents.

Mortgage deed – The conveyancer receives your signed mortgage deed.

Request for funds submitted – When all the legal work is completed, LMS will ask us to release the funds. They'll give you a completion statement to confirm any additional fees you need to pay, as well as the proposed completion date.

Completion - The transaction is completed and the funds are released to you. You'll get a letter from us with details of your new repayments.

After completion – LMS will register the new mortgage with the Land Registry. It may take some time to update the title register to reflect the new mortgage.

If you choose a bank appointed solicitor, we'll appoint a solicitor or licensed conveyancer to act for us and pay for the standard legal work done by them.

Even if the legal fees for changing your mortgage are paid for by us, you may need to pay some legal fees yourself in certain circumstances, for example if you want to add or remove someone from the mortgage. A full breakdown of costs will be provided by the solicitor or licensed conveyancer in advance.

If you want to make any changes to the ownership of your property or the term of your mortgage, or you want to borrow an additional amount, please call 0800 169 6333 to arrange an appointment and we’ll guide you through the process. In some of cases you'll need to appoint a solicitor to act for you. 

Lines open Monday to Friday 08:00 to 20:00, Saturday and Sunday 09:00 to 17:00.

In the case of a remortgage or moving home, the conveyancer acting for us will need to get a redemption statement from your existing lender and this needs to be addressed to them. The conveyancer can’t accept copies of the redemption statement supplied by you to complete the purchase. If you’re currently on a fixed rate, some lenders won’t issue a redemption statement until the fixed rate has expired. Where the redemption statement shows early repayment charges, the conveyancer will check whether you’re happy to complete before or after these expire.

In the case of a remortgage or release of funds on a property you own outright, our conveyancers provide an online portal to update you on key stages of the process. If you haven’t signed up for it, you can contact the conveyancers directly using the details given to you in their welcome letter.

Your solicitor or licensed conveyancer will be either Legal Marketing Services (LMS) or Optima. Once HSBC has appointed one of them, they'll contact you by email and text message. It’s important you respond to these contacts in order for the legal work to start and for you to access the portal to track your case.

It’s important for the solicitor or licensed conveyancer to check with you that all the information they hold is accurate. They'll also ask you to provide some additional information, so they fully understand your needs. They are also required to complete their own identification checks in accordance with anti-money laundering legislation.