To ask your best and worst house move stories?

[Fishface77]

I need to decide whether to move house or stay where I am.
It's the thought of moving that puts me of.
PLease give me your stories and help me decide whether a slightly bigger home is worth the angst of moving.

A story that put me of:
My friend moved and had a box marked fragile which the removal men proceeded to drop. It was full of her Grandmothers china and she was devestated.
On removal day, there was a problem in the chain and my sister ended up with all her belongings sitting outside her new house while the previous owners ran around trying to pack. They didn't think they would actually have to move that day. We all ended up helping them pack and they left at 830 that evening leaving behin a room full of stuff that they said they'd collect the next day but came 2 weeks later and said they didn't actually need all that stuff and that my sister could get rid of it. AT HER EXPENSE!

Accepted a slightly lower cash offer. Buyer dragged purchase on and on through their solicitor deliberately so that they could drop the offer on the day of exchange by £50,000.

Which we had to accept as we HAD to move.

They are going to regret this Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But someday. Soon, and for the rest of their lives.

That's nuts. Couldn't you have rented somewhere where you needed to move to? Paying rent and mortgage for a few months while you found a new buyer would have been an awful lot less than£50k!

There are so many house moving horror stories. Me and DP made a big and expensive mistake with our current house, and have vowed that the next time we move we want to find a house that we know we'll live in for years. We found the whole process so draining and soul destroying even though our move was done and dusted in 2 months. Although our vendors did try to fob us off on the day we exchanged contracts saying they now wouldn't be moving in with relatives after all, and had a 'related purchase'. Threatening to pull out soon halted that little plan though.

Moving house is supposed to be almost as stressful as a divorce or a bereavement, so I think you have to be sure before you commit to it. Not to mention the added expenses of solicitors fees, moving costs etc.

You must have a reason to move? Is the house you'd be moving to much better than your current one? Will you be living there for a long time? If you stay put for now, will you be moving a couple of years down the line? These are the things you need to ask yourself.

DH bought a new build flat and on completion day went to collect the keys. The agents couldn't find them and asked, in all seriousness, if he would come back tomorrow instead - a man with all his worldly possessions in a van that he had to return that night and nowhere else to stay because he'd sold his house to move here. I think he had to get a bit shouty before they realised the implications of what they were asking and eventually the keys were located.

I don't think we'll move again unless we have to.

I know two people whose chains have failed to complete on the right day. In both cases it was due to someone in the chain f**king up. So they're sitting there with everything in a van but unable to move into their new house.

I'm not going to start on the endless pain and cost of our last house move but I will give you the best moving tip. Pay the removal company to pack. You then don't have to do anything. It's even better if you can stay with a friend the night before you move as the removal company will pack and load straight into the van. Then they will park it in their compound overnight and you're ready to go the next day.

There is no doubt about it, it's painful and all consuming, and it's generally either the buyer or seller who makes it so, but it's like child birth, once it's done and youre in it's fine. If I wanted to move I wouldn't not do so because of the process.

Moved an entire house + cat on my own whilst OH working 200miles away. Packed everything myself, cleaned the old house myself, packed the van myself, friend drove the van so I could drive my car. Unloaded all the boxes myself, OH came home from work to new place & promptly fell over the cat box.

We were rent into rent so no talk of contracts falling apart etc.

It was a bit stressful but I planned, made lists, labelled everything clearly & it was fine. Planning to move to bigger place in May, I have OH with me this time- so OBVIOUSLY it'll be far more stressful ;-)

pants We were already doing that (paying a hotel for dh to stay in) and had got almost to the end of our credit cards, hence the desperation.

They were very clever about stringing it out including their solicitor and then them going on holiday. We had no clue they were doing it for ages.

Yikes, we put our house on the market yesterday, I'm dreading the whole thing really.

I moved 18 times with my parents (military) and about 9 or 10 times as an adult (mostly abroad). Whereas we have never bought a place, the cost and physical faff of moving is something I can sympathise with.

Declutter greatly. Pack logically. Label everything. Get helpers. Phone for pizzas.

This isn't filling me with hope for our house sale! In contracts stage at the moment, only a few weeks in. We are a complete chain though, first time buyers buying us and our vendor is going into rented, so hopefully will be straightforward.

When we bought the place we are in now though it was a dream! First time buyers buying ex rental from the estate agent who owned it! 8 weeks start to finish. We also didn't have to rely on anyone moving out or any chains. It also meant we could move in stages rather than in one day. That is the part I am dreading this time round, especially with two cats and a one year old.

Our move went surprisingly easily, 9 weeks from offer to move. The usual hiccups which at the time seemed very stressful but now forgotten.

The biggest stress was having 25 viewings over the summer holidays and keeping the place tidy and clean at all times.

Once we moved into the new place I found the first few weeks very stressful. Boxes everywhere, not really safe for the children, not knowing the nuances of the house/heating etc. Plus various things that cropped up that weren't on the survey such as no chimney liner, flat roof sprang a leak. We spent 6k in 6 days on basically essential maintenance. And the lady who lived here previously had a lot of dogs as she was a breeder so the place stank of dogs and was left filthy dirty, garden full of dog poo etc. 12 weeks in and things are a lot better!

We completed and were then told that the old lady couldn't be moved out until the next day, luckily we weren't in a chain so stayed put overnight until her awkward son in law (who'd been tricky throughout the purchase) pulled his finger out the following day.

Easiest was when we bought the house we're in now, six years ago. We had no intention of moving but had a nosy at some new builds when we had an hour to kill. Fell totally in love with one, couldn't get it out of my mind, so enquired the following day if they'd be prepared to do an exchange (we buy their house, they buy ours sort of thing). The agreed to it and had to get local estate agents to value our home. 2 days before Christmas they made us an offer for our house which we accepted so I signed the forms. Obviously nothing could then be done until we could appoint a solicitor after Christmas and New Year. January 4th was the earliest that this could be done, when the offices re-opened. Things happened VERY quickly, Nationwide approved our mortgage in record time, and the time from appointing the solicitor to completing and moving in was 24 days. Easiest, most stress-free house move ever.

Mine was indirectly related to our move. I was relocating as my job had been moved from a satellite office to the brand new head office. (I actually did 2 office moves in 2 months as head office wasn't ready so was in temporary offices for a month. Whole other story )
So, on Monday of what proved to be moving week the solicitor phones and says that exchange will be Wednesday and completion /moving day is Friday. I ring the removals company who were already provisionally booked to clear as much as possible on Wednesday and the last of it on Friday morning.

Then I phone my supervisor at work to book relocation leave. My employer was allowing 5 working days off for this purpose. She says I can't take the time off !

Our last move was really quite easy. Mind you that might have been because I was away so left most of it to dh... Came home and pretty much everything was in!

Oh my goodness, that's awful Monty. Whenever these threads come up I decide I do like my house after all!

My step-mom was buying a house from a guy in southern Europe who was moving back to the UK as he was (clearly) in failing health. They insisted that all the contents had to be included in the sale, including the car in the garage. Stepmom didn't want the car, but she knew of someone in the market for one so that deal was finalised several weeks before completion, and he actually left to go back to the UK.

Three days before completion he called the new owner of the car to say that he'd be arriving at the airport the following morning and he'd like "his" car to be available for his use for the week, whilst he was sorting the completion. During the course of the conversation, which ended with many two-word phrases containing "off" as the second word it emerged that he not only planned to stay in the house up until the completion, but for several days afterwards…

The presence of four massive Ukrainian body-builders moving my stepmom's stuff in on completion day put him in his place.

MoastyToasty What was your response? "GTF" perhaps, as mine would have been???

I broke my leg while doing a self move and the husband was working 300 miles away.

I ended up having to beg a local moving firm to do it short notice. I actually can't remember very much of it as I was so hopped out on painkillers.

Mostly though it's all gone well.

OK - I'll give you a good story.

Saw a house we liked on Saturday. Made an offer which was accepted on Monday. Put our house on the market on Wednesday. Got an offer on the Friday (first viewer & way over what we thought we would get).

On moving day, the vendors arranged to move their belongings the day before and for the removal company to store them in the van overnight. They booked into a hotel. We thought this was a great idea so we did the same (we actually met them as we ended up in the same hotel!).

The money completed at 11am and by 12 we could start moving into our new house.

Really pretty much stress free!

Don't ask me to talk about house extensions though.

Our only drama was discovering on moving in day that all the drains were blocked up to the hilt. Called water board, the problem was on our property so our responsibility.

I was 2 weeks overdue with first baby and beyond stressed so started sobbing (why I had to move so heavily pregnant is an entirely different thread!). Water board men took pity on me and offered to write up that the blockage was 2 meters to the left making it water board responsibility so they could fix it. I think I may have hugged one in my gratitude