Stupid questions about the practicalities of moving house

[frogs]

All you serial house movers, can I pick your brains?

We've been in our current house so long I can't remember how you sort out practicalities like utilities and keys etc.

How do we organise getting hold of the keys for the new house? And handing over the keys to our current house?

I guess we need to contact our current utility suppliers to let them know we're moving out, but how do we arrange to take over the supplies in our new house, or even find out which suppliers they have? And telephone/internet too.

Help, please!

Have you exchanged yet, hunker? Is this your sooper-dooper dream house?

Yes! We've exchanged!!!!!!!!! Yes, it's our dream house - the fingers crossed vibey one. Oh, am excited now!

Don't forget to pack light bulbs and toilet rolls in easily accessible place - also basic tool kit. Don't be surprised also if they have left a load of junk/rubbish in the house and garden that you will have to clear. Expect the house to be filthy and just keep thinking of what it will be when you have done work on it, rather than how it is now.

Oh hunker, hooray! Will you be my online housemoving buddy? Since you seem to be so much more up to speed on things than I am? [sucking up emoticon]

Certainly your whole transaction seems to have gone much more quickly than ours -- we accepted an offer and had our offer accepted back in October, and things have been stalling on again/off again since then.

Now then, about that red wine with a side order of valium...

oh yes - our vendors seemed surprised that we didn't want the most hideous pine four poster bed you have ever seen, complete with frilly floral curtains - but of course their truck had gone by then so we were stuck getting rid of it ourselves - but they did also leave a huge chest freezer when we had been planning to buy one

Spooky, exbury -- our vendors have a huge hideous pine 4-poster bed with frilly curtains. I really, really hope they don't leave it behind. Although since some people clearly do like that sort of thing, maybe there is some ebay potential...

There wasn't much in ours by the time my DH had taken a lot of frustration out "dismantling" it to get it out

Yes, will be your online moving buddy! Our sale and purchase has been shortish and crisis after drama. Has only taken three months though - thank goodness! Our last two moves took MUCH longer, so I guess we deserved a quick one!

Have had one quote for a removal [hideous] and can't get through to the man who was meant to come this morning

Have another one coming to quote this evening and one more tomorrow if this one's no good.

It's only up the road, but we have so much furniture - because this house has NO built in storage - so we have to have somebody to help us move.

Gah.

Removal quote = nightmare.

Here (London) you need two weeks notice because they have to organise parking suspension to get the lorry in. So I had to book it without knowing for definite whether we were going ahead. Major hiatus caused last week by our vendors unilaterally deciding they were going to move completion date forward to 23rd, after everyone else had agreed 27th. Luckily, eventually, they cracked -- by the end of the umpteenth conversation I think the estate agent had decided he'd rather talk his clients round than carry on arguing with me.

We're going for the full packing option rather than the one where they leave you the boxes for a DIY pack, since there was only £200 between the two options. Mighty 'spensive though. But last time we moved (11 years ago) we did it ourselves with a bunch of friends, several rolls of black sacks and a hired transit van. Nuff said. Pretty much any amount of money seems reasonable to avoid that.

LOL at estate agent not wanting to argue with you! Removal quotes are scary things. Really don't want to do it ourselves though. Last time when we moved, I was 15 weeks pg with DS1 and had just had a bleed, so we moved loads of stuff I'd been meaning to clear out, but hadn't got round to. Don't want to make that mistake again, but had too much to do last time to clear it out before DS1 was born.

After we moved, had to put in new kitchen (old one had man piss on the floor and rotten units), new bathroom (old one had a leaky bath and a basin not attached to the wall) and decorate throughout (house was uninhabitable for first three months), the house we're moving into looks like a palace (although it does need decorating). Plus we were both working full time, the boiler broke so we had no central heating for most of the winter and the fridge freezer was actually warmer than our house (so I had to fight John Lewis to get a new one delivered, but go and buy fresh food every night for a month as we had nowhere to keep anything).

Ooh, that was cathartic!

Our vendor's estate agent had the patience of a saint but even she gave up on them in the end when it took 3 days to get them to decide if/where they would leave a key - and they still didn't do what they had agreed in the end! She was quite happy to talk to me about them, but it didn't get us anywhere much.... God I am glad not to be dealing with them any more, this thread is bringing it all back!

Yes, is all hideous. We've never done a chain before, as we bought our current house as first time buyers -- yes, boys and girls, back in 1995 it was possible to buy a large but rather dysfunctional house in a not too ropey area on the salary of a newly-qualified teacher...

That also had its moments, as the outgoing tenants (house had been repossessed) had removed various key components of the central heating system and left scary-looking bare wires hanging out of the walls -- as I found out to my cost. Luckily I was standing on a cork-topped stool at the time. We were actually allowed access for the two weeks between exchange and completion, and we were too busy getting the house habitable to think about packing up our flat which, with hindsight, was a mistake.

Ah yes, some of our friends still bring up that house move when they feel the need to remind us of our indebtedness to them. Hopefully this one will be a bit more professional and, well, grown-up. Hence the grown-up price tag.

LOL - we too decided that 10years down the line, since most of our friends now have LOs and DPs and PIL are 10 years older, the time had come for a "grown-up" move. It was hideously expensive, but worth every penny (almost)

Well done for exchanging Hunker, my same-skinned friend!

Frogs - would you consider underfloor heating if it hasn't got any in it yet? I would lurve u/f heating - I hate ugly radiator covers.

We had our contracts to sign yesterday and hope to complete on the 14th May. Our buyers solicitor thought that she was heavily pg and said she would rush it through for her. She was too to say anything to the contrary!

Thanks, Margo! Good luck for yours too!

Can't actually believe we're moving

We had left keys with our EA's anyway so just locked up and posted our set through the letter box. Then our solictors rang on completion and we collected our new ones from their EA. Witht he removal company we took the most expensive quote but negotiated packing as part of it rather than extra. At shortish notice they rather have work than not.

You should be able to ask via solicitor who the current suppliers are (get copies of their bills if needs be) and ring local council yourself to register. Otherwise when you phone to terminate your utilities you could ask if they currently supply you new address. As to broadband , don't get me started on BT . They will say they will activate it on the date you request but unless it is already set up it doesn't work (they say they can't know until they try on the day) and in our experience it can take several weeks for various parts and upgrades to be fitted Sky also tried to charge us a moving fee even though the guy came along and said he couldn't fit a new dish as our house is tile hung and none of his brackets were suitable - had to organise it privately at ££ to go on the roof.

Don't forget to organise post redirection in advance. They say to allow 5 working days but in practice by the time the PO have sent it off to be processed it is at least 7 ! dh had a protracted battle over ID for my maiden name too. I'm sure some of our post has gone astray in the meantime .

Good luck

Margo, I like underfloor heating in principle, but it's my understanding you can only have it in a solid concrete floor, rather than a wooden rafters and floorboards type. So not much good for a 1st floor bathroom in an old house. Would def. consider getting it done if we can ever afford to completely redo the kitchen, but that's not v. likely in the short or medium term.

I had a conversation with BT, who told me (after I had to phone up 4 times, hold endlessly blahdiblah) that we'd have to pay £149 to have a second telephone line installed (I work from home, need two lines) and that we definitely couldn't keep our existing numbers as we were on a different exchange (couple of miles up the road only). Oh, and it wouldn't be possible to have broadband as we weren't in an area that was covered (London zone 2, not the Highlands of Scotland!)

Phoned Telewest who are our existing suppliers, got through first time and yes, we can have new line installed free, keep our existing broadband and telly package, and almost certainly retain our existing numbers. So that was a hard decision. Not.

I think you can heat the upstairs- search the archives - I think there is a link to a company called nuheat