International Removal from London to Munich

[RomySchneider]

Hello there,
has anyone got experience with international removals? Do you use a company from where you are moving or one located where you will be moving to? Anyones that you can recommend?
Will be moving from London to Munich in January - quite a tight schedule but hopefully it can be done...
Many thanks in advance!

Hi, we moved from UK to France in August and used a company in the UK called John Masons - very good.

We moved to Belgium with a local removals firm who are used to moving people to the continent. It cost less than £1500. We packed everything ourselves. We were supposed to use hubby's employer's official removers, can't remember their name now, their quote was 3 times the price and we would have had to wait up to 2 weeks for our possessions to go in a crate up to a warehouse near Heathrow and then be put back onto a lorry past our home again and taken with our people's possessions to Belgium, I thought that was an incredible waste of resources and at the time thankfully the senior boss agreed to make an exception and allow us to organise our own move at a third of the cost. I highly recommend looking at a local company who can move your possessions quickly and you can arrive just ahead of the lorry and be there for unloading. I would avoid the big "international" relocation companies.

I've used GB liners three times to move overseas, they pick up in the uk and once your shipment is due to arrive in destined country they advise you of the shipping agent at that end who is duly in touch with delivery details. They have always been so helpful and friendly. I kept costs down by doing the packing myself and only using a partial container.

My last move involved shipping 60 cubic feet to Toronto (roughly the size of 4 large filing cabinets) and it came to £612. I'd guess a move within Europe would be cheaper?

Hope this helps!

Dh and his dad hired a 7.5 ton lorry with lift near Munich for ?799 including insurance and drove it themselves to our house near Surrey. I packed everything from a small 3 bed semi (belongings for 2 adults 1 toddler then) into it, and freecycled quite a lot of junk to ensure we had space (we also fitted an enormous outdoor rabbit hutch in and the rabbit and guinepig travelled in the lorry with no ill effect...) They loaded everything into the lorry and drove it back... Obviously they also paid for diesel and ferry. DH's company gave us a lump sum rather than pay location and it wasn't especially generous, but we needed to make it stretch to pay rental deposit and first month's rent as we waited for our house sale to come through. We got quotes from removal companies but they were all vastly more.

We had 4 weeks from accepting the transfer offer to DH starting work, and DD, the belongings and I moved over the week after, having sold our house (but that was just before the slump in the housing market in mid 2007) and wound up my business - so it can be done!

Depends of course how your move is being financed, you may not need the absolute cheapest DIY option! However if you do it yourself the movers can't lose your stuff :)

Good luck!

That should say I packed everything into BOXES... and "rather than pay RE-Location". Not important really, sleep deprivation is affecting my typing/ ability to make sense atm...