Getting Keys To First Home Next Week In Need of Advice

adz5000

Hi folks, my girlfriend and I will be picking up the keys to our first home on April 1st and completely moving in on April 18th, and we have plans to do bits and pieces and get things delivered between the 1st and 18th.
Looking for some advice on what we need to sort out before then? We have home insurance set up but we are unsure about anything to do with council tax, also setting up with energy companies and getting broadband set up in the house. 
Also with this virus, can anyone suggest any must have items we should buy now incase they are unavailable come mid-April? We have all our furniture and big appliances paid for and delivery dates arranged.
This is in Scotland, if it has any effect on council taxes etc. TIA

TheCyclingProgrammer

Have you exchanged yet (I'm not sure how different the system is in Scotland, sorry). I only ask because I'll be surprised if any house purchases move forwards at this point. Good chance we will be on strict lockdown and can't see how anybody would be able to move home under those circumstances.

mwarby

I believe the Scottish equivalent is conclusion of the missives

adz5000

Everything is done, we have transferred the funds and everything. The house will legally be ours on April 1st.

Ectophile

Council tax: contact the local council and tell them you are moving in.

Utility bills:  Find out who the current suppliers are.  The previous owner should have told you.  Take meter readings and tell them you are moving in.  For electricity and gas, you can't change suppliers until you have set up an account with the current one.

adz5000

Thanks for the info Ectophile

stragglebod

Make sure the previous owner has already started the process of getting the phone and broadband transferred so you can take over the line. You don't want to move in to find that the line is locked for the next month before you can get it transferred to you.

lesalanos

In England, the council will be advised of the move and your ownership and will send out a bill soon afterwards so need to speak to them.  Unsure on Scotland but I wouldn't chase them.  Just keep some ££ in your bank 

Utilities... try to find out who supplies at present.  Take a time stamped photo of the meters when you move in.   Worth checking that gas and electric are connected now... I've had 1 house ( from auction)  where the gas was disconnected and took 3 months to get a new connection.  You can change supplier if you want to after but it's useful to know who supplies now and start looking at prices etc.

Broadband you can start talking to companies now.  The line may not be connected so get people to check now. The more you can do before you get the keys the better.  You should be able to access the property before completion to measure for anything you need or check anything 

rahul_mohanachandran

Moving can be a stressful thing, especially in the current situation. An approach both my wife and I adopted when moving to our home last year was to make a list of essential things we need to do by category.

Following are the ones we used.

 - Insurances
 - Bills & Service
 - Furnishing
 - Cleaning Equipments.

Even within Furnishing category, we divided items into each room including the garden. This helped us to organised things into must-have and good to have items which were useful when it comes to deciding which item we should spend our limited budget on.

I am quite new to MSE so it wouldn't let me post a link yet, I have published a blog post on the to-do list I followed while moving my home on my website. Here is a link separated by spaces in between so that if you need a pre-written list you can still access it.

https: //kasera.co.uk /blogs/ new-house-check-list

Disclaimer: Even though my blog post is completely non-commercial and written with the only intention to share what helped me rest of the site is commercial.

It helped me to sort almost 90% of the things I needed to do but there were a couple of minor things I missed on the list like the TV Licence but they will always send you enough number of letters to get you signed up.

Hope this help, stay safe.

TELLIT01

You may experience problems with getting furniture etc delivered.  It's impossible for 2 people to stay 2 metres apart when carrying a washing machine, double bed etc.  Have delivery dates been finalised and confirmed for everything?

societys_child

It's impossible for 2 people to stay 2 metres apart when carrying a washing machine

True, but as they'll arrive together in the cab of a truck . . .