When do you start packing to move

Slinky

DairyQueen said:

mm1985 said:

DairyQueen said:

We have have learned from painful experience never to assume the move is on until exchange of contracts. One vendor pulled-out the night before exchange and, on another occasion, the buyer pulled on the actual day of exchange. If the property has to be re-marketed then the last thing you need is a property in a state of chaos.

We declutter before listing and then keep the house pristine until exchange. We allow at least two weeks between exchange and completion and ensure that the removal company is provisionally booked before confirming a completion date. You need every moment of two weeks to pack if you are DIY-ing but, for us, the extra cost of having the removal company pack is worth every penny.

There is no way I would add to the stress of moving by packing a single thing until after exchange. The trend to exchange and complete on the same day is new and ill-advised. Whose interest is served is difficult to establish. I shudder at the thought of a house completely packed when the call comes in that a buyer/vendor somewhere in the chain has pulled-out.

In the ideal world we would exchange around 2 weeks before completion but unfortunately none of the solicitors in the chain will agree to this at the moment and due to Covid the current practice is to exchange on the day of or a couple of days before completion. I will explore the idea of getting a moving company in to pack for us but even then there is still stuff we would need to do before exchange to be able to move on completion day 

You have my sympathy. Clients instruct solicitors - not the reverse. Our buyer's solicitor suggested exchange/completion on the same day with less than a week's notice. She had been useless throughout the process. We contacted the buyer and arranged things between ourselves. It seems to me that the only people served by this exchange/completion on the same day are conveyance solicitors. Perhaps they are attempting to save on their costs at your expense?

The exchange/complete on the same day or in a short time scale is to cut the risk of somebody involved getting a positive covid diagnosis, or heaven help, becoming sick and dying between exchange and completion.

I started clearing out in the year before we put our house on the market. Fortunately we had a loft ladder so I could get up there and clear out a lot of long lost junk my OH would have insisted on keeping had he remembered it was there.  I found some crap that had made it through a previous move I was completely unaware of, including a deep fat fryer I didn't know he owned!

Remember that if you decide to go down the removals packing service route, most removals companies will not empty your loft for you.

Getting_greyer

Start packing the night before the move.  It keeps you motivated.

gab3x

We are due to Complete on 8th of Jan and hopefully exchange this coming week (our sellers are late). I am consciously trying not to pack until Exchange as I don't want to have a mental breakdown of having the sale fall through and then having to ceremoniously unpack. 

Moving from a largish (for inner London) one bed flat with lots of stuff and moving to a two bed house.

I would like to do same day exchange/complete as we are living in uncertain times but don't want the stress of having someone pull out at the last minute.

warby68

Even if something does go worng with this particular sale or its timing, chances are you will be moving one way or another in the foreseeable future.
There is plenty you can do ahead of time to make the final packing stage easier - declutter and prune everywhere and decide what can be packed up for a while as you go and get your packing materials sorted. Lots of people seem to spend thousands on moving but scrimp on packing - trying to scrounge well used boxes from everywhere. Some proper stackable, even sized boxes and bubble wrap are a worthwhile small investment. If you label them well and allocate part of a room you can access stuff easily if you make a mistake. Try and do the grottiest places first such as shed, garage, loft. That's where the 'just in case' and forgotten stuff tends to accumulate and is the hardest to do in a rush. Also don't forget not everything needs to be packed. Removal firms can move drawers with their contents in many cases. A chat with your removal firm can be enlightening if you've never moved before. All our clothes went unpacked - removers covered drawer contents and had mobile hanging wardrobes for the rest.
After a few moves, the advance stage is not really about packing , its about getting ready to pack so the final job is easier and all your stuff has been pruned and sorted in advance. Then when you do the full pack its actually quite easy.
Make a list of what you will take with you in the car - valuables, cleaning and brewing up stuff, loo rolls and light bulbs (scrooge vendors can take everything) and pets stuff and make sure the beds/bedding are always easy to get at. If things go a bit wrong on moving day, making up the beds and being able to prepare basic refreshments can keep you going overnight.

SandyN21

AdrianC said:

Start tidying, clearing, and culling before putting the place on the market...

That's exactly what I've done.  I took early retirement last October and in my first week off cleared the contents of a 3-bed loft which was mostly full of rubbish that had accumilated over 27 years and took about 15 bags to the charity shop with mostly clothes/shoes/ handbags (some still new) that I no longer wanted).  Now we have an offer on the house so fingers crossed all goes well for a move in the Spring.

Rambosmum

We started packing before we put the house on the market - we had a good declutter and clear out and then packed all non-essentials in to sturdy boxes and put them in the loft, further decluttering the house (easily accessible and clearly labelled). 

At around your point in proceedings we packed everything we didn't use at least weekly.

Our sale did fall through, so we just hired some really cheap storage and popped the boxes in that whilst we resold (very quick though and we knew it would be which is why we did it). 

I don't think you can pack too early! 

mm1985

I got in touch with local authority to enquire about when searches would be returned for our buyers. They were sent back to the agent who requested them on Friday so will hopefully be with the solicitors this week. All I want to confirm now with the EA is that the buyers have received the survey and are still happy to proceed. Then I feel sale is more likely to go ahead and will order boxes and at the least pack the things we don’t need. 

We’ve already had a good clear out. Had a skip in the summer, have given away toys and done many trips to tip. I’m sure I have more to to get rid of so maybe another trip to the tip after Christmas 

ccfc1972

Getting_greyer said:

Start packing the night before the move.  It keeps you motivated.

Crazy talk.

peterhjohnson

mm1985 said:

 So you started before you exchanged? I guess at the moment all I keep hearing is sales are falling through more than usual and as exchange is only days before completion all the packing could be done for nothing 

I saw my last move as a year-long project that was going to happen somehow sometime. I did it in 10 months. The early part was research on the destination area. Three months before the end, I'd sold and put in an offer on the new place. I had already packed away my camping gear (It was autumn) and now accelerated other packing/dumping. Had anything fallen through, I was quite sure I'd still move before long and would lose little by packing and dumping now.

geoave1

Just get a packing company. I too do not understand how people spend hundreds of thousands on a property purchase and not a grand or two on a packing & removals service! We’re moving after the new year and I started packing the stuff we don’t need immediately (ornaments, books, vases etc). The rest i.e. clothes and kitchen i’m leaving for packers. Can never start too early. I’ve found not storing stuff in a loft in any house i’ve lived in to be the best way of ensuring I don’t keep anything unnecessarily!