Moving to a property just a few streets away can prove to be very stressful, but relocating all your house contents to another country hundreds of miles away can only increase the stress factor.
Removal experts believe the key to avoiding stress and making the move as smooth as possible, is good organisation and realistic planning. For example, people have paid £150 to take an old washing machine abroad, when you can buy a new one there for a similar price.
A good checklist will help you plan.
Are there storage facilities available when you arrive?
Does the delivery schedule allow for delays?
If goods need to be switched from a bigger lorry to a smaller one will there be charges? Quite often the lorries used for transit will be too big to get to your final destination.
What is the insurance situation? If good get damaged or go missing.
A good removal company will build time into the job to allow for problems and will include transfers between vehicles in the quote.
Companies will take an inventory but it is a good idea to do your own as well, preferably listing items in box then box number. This way in case of any loss, it is very easy to track down what was lost and where it was.
Check whether the company you are dealing with is the one transporting the goods or whether they are acting as an agent.
Some companies treat each job as a one-off, where as others will schedule it as part a larger delivery, which will normally take longer, but could bring the cost down.
A typical delivery time to Spain would be approximately 14 days.
Costs to the continent would be around £100 per cubic meter. Costs in England will normally be calculated separately.
A typical 4 bedroom house will have 30 cubic meters of contents to move which works out to be £3,525 including VAT.
Make sure you have calculated the correct amount of cubic meters which needs to be moved. It is very likely that the movers will not have any space for even a few extra boxes. There are horror stories of people having to literally throw possessions away as people are moving into their house and the removal company will not take them. There have also been cases where the removal company arrives with vans half full so there is not enough space for your belongings.
Taking into account all the above and planning with plenty of time should hopefully limit any hassles that may arise.
