Moving day what to expect help

PasturesNew

Nobody will know how your day will go; we can only throw horror stories at you

I got the call at 10am to say "collect the keys, it's yours"; the sellers hadn't fully moved out until 5.30. It's a good job I was renting and not planning on moving in that day at all.

As your seller is renting, they might be moving 1-2 days before completion. I'm selling now and plan to move my stuff out 1-2 days before and then come in "camping" and cleaning.

Two trips for a professional outfit is unusual. Most people only do two trips if they're doing it themselves/with mates.

Could you empty half the house into self storage 2 days before, moving just the essentials on the day - then go to the self storage and get the non essentials depending on what the time is? You can rent self storage by the day.

RelievedSheff

The time you pick the keys up can vary depending on how quickly the money is moved around the chain.

Our first purchase we couldn't get the keys until 4pm. With our latest purchase a few months ago we had the keys by midday.

We were a bit more organised with the latest move and packed all of our belongings over the four week period from reserving our new build home to moving in. We took the time to have a good clear out and get rid of anything we didn't need and made sure that we packed everything properly in labelled boxes, each box having the room it needed to be in and the contents of the box on it, which made unpacking again a breeze.

We didn't have a removals firm instead we opted for a local man and van service which proved for us to be an excellent way of making a smooth move and saving a few pennies. The guys were brilliant and charged a set fee per day of £295 for a large luton van and three guys. The van was unloaded and they were on the way by 1pm.

We found that doing the packing over the four weeks and taking our time with it made the whole move much less stressful. It still seemed like a long wait for the phone call to arrive to say we could have the keys though.

beedeedee

Years ago, a neighbour was moving out and agreed time for completion was 12.00pm. A locksmith turned up at 1. 00pm with the new owners, before they had finished loading up and changed the locks, then locked the doors and drove off. Apparently they were perfectly entitled to do this! There was a right old to do about it and they had to wait a few days before they could get the rest of their furniture and stuff, having had to pay for another van plus men etc....l

LandyAndy

A four bed house full of stuff and you are using an outfit with one van?

Get some proper movers in to quote. it isn't too late to change.

babyblade41

Expect anything and everything IMO... good removals are the key...unlike me in an unknown area who used what I believed to be good ones but hadn't had experience of a large house going long distant

Nightmare and extremely stressful

One large lorry , not 2 is a must day before then just bed and kettle on the day ..oh and a couple of plastic glasses and I. always order a food delivery for later in the evening to include a bottle of sparkly (hence glasses) new tea , coffee , sugar , biscuits, milk and some pre-packed sarnies for the next day as you will be busy

ethank

We were in by 1,30 as we were one from the bottom of the chain.

hazyjo

Would never do what you're doing. Mine have usually packed for me the day before (at least) and taken some of it on the van or left it in the house. They'll finish packing (usually just essentials) on moving day and do it in one trip. Usually been one massive removals lorry, but last time was two large vans. Never done in two separate trips - that's asking for trouble!


Sounds like you've got more of a 'man and a van' sort of set-up.


This is not something to money-save on. Decent (and insured!) removals people are worth EVERY.SINGLE.PENNY. Especially if they do the packing too.


I've once completed in the afternoon, another couldn't get into the house until later, and the last one - my sale completed at 9.30am! My friend sold and her buyers wouldn't even give her until lunchtime to clean the house (all the stuff was out) as completion had actually taken place on that link of the chain.

[Deleted User]

A sensible person would have everything boxed and bagged up and waiting in the hallway/downstairs the night before the move, ready to be put straight in the van the next morning. Ideally, a lot of smaller items could already be loaded in your cars which will save even more time.

Of course, not everyone is like that. My vendors did not get out of our house until 6pm in the evening. Apparently their van wasn't ready in time, but i don't 100% buy that as it looked to me like they weren't very organised at all.

Luckily I weren't moving in till the following weekend, so had a whole week to get the house cleaned and ready to move into.

hb2

We paid our removal men to pack (money well spent!), they arrived at 9am and the contents of our 3 bed house were loaded into the lorry by the time we completed at 12.30. We paid an extra sum as 'insurance' in case things took longer than expected - which was just as well as our vendors had packed and gone but not handed over the keys, we didn't get them until 4pm!

littleblue735

I found that some people don't realise they should be out of the house by the time the money goes through, usually midday.
I helped my Aunt move a few months ago, into a house that had been lived in for decades and the elderly couple thought they had till the evening to move out. Cue us pitching up at 1pm to find a house full of stuff still, so we all got stuck in helping the removal men to load the van, they left at 5pm then spent four hours unloading our van. Aunt got billed for the extra time too!
Hopefully your vendor has got a full removal service planned! If you are local I would knock on her door and have a nice chat to see what her plans are.