Find a Law Firm
approved by HSBC

You may be very frustrated with the lawyer but if it only go take a few more days they it may be worth waiting as, depending on how far progressed you are you may end up delaying the transaction by a number of weeks if you need to replace your solicitor You may wish to enlist the help of your broker to check with the HSBC as to the time frame to get your lawyer reinstated on the panel once again.

Anti-terror and anti-money-laundering rules require solicitors and licensed conveyancers to verify the identity of the person or body they are dealing with before they can accept their conveyancing business. The Client Care letter that you need to sign will no doubt confirm this. Your lawyer is right that HSBC also require certain documents to be viewed. If a you refuse to provide ID verification documents, your conveyancer would not be able to accept instructions from you. Your lawyer also has obligations to obtain certain documents in accordance with HSBC CML Handbook requirements last updated on HSBC

We are a listing service only for law firms wishing to communicate if they are on the HSBC conveyancing panel or other lender panels. We do not charge referral fees to the any conveyancer that you subsequently appoint.

Ordinarily, even if your lawyer is not on the HSBC conveyancing panel they can still act for you on your sale. it might be that the lender will not release the original deeds (if applicable and increasingly irrelevant) until after the mortgage is paid off. You should speak to your lawyer directly before you start the process though to ensure that there is no problem as lenders are changing their requirements fairly frequently at the moment.

obtaining recommendations is a good start. Before you go ahead check if they offer a no sale no fee offer. Also you often get what you pay for - a firm which quotes more will often provide a better service than one which is cheap as chips. We would always advocate that you speak with the lawyer handling your conveyancing

HSBC do not ordinarily appoint a member of their approved list of lawyers to deal with such a matter. If they did require any legal work then you would need to ensure that such a lawyer was on the HSBC panel

HSBC will need an independent valuation of the property. Your lawyer will not arrange this. Usually HSBC will appoint their own surveyor to do this, and you will have to pay for it. Remember that this is a valuation for mortgage purposes and not a survey. You may wish to consider appointing your own surveyor to carry out a survey or prepare a home buyers report on the property. It is up to you to satisfy yourself that the property is structurally sound before you buy it. If the survey or report reveals that building work is needed, you should tell your solicitor. You may wish to renegotiate with the seller. or Your lawyer will not organise the survey but they may be able to put you in touch with a local one that they recommend. RICS offers a find a surveyor service (just google it) where you can search for a qualified surveyor by postcode. As you are getting a mortgage with HSBC you could contact your them to see if they have a list of approved surveyors.