Moving with an absent cat

[NicD12]

Hello.

I rescued a kitten four years ago and he has been neutered. He has always been an outdoors cat and will go 'walk about' for a few days or weeks at a time before showing up at home.
He is a friendly cat and I am positive he has a few homes up and down the road. The neighbours whom we talk to know his our cat and aware we are moving.
The major problem we have, before our contracts exchange what will we do if he doesn't show up before we move? He has a micro chip and I will update our details once we move online but I'm frightful he won't come with us as we won't see him before we move.
Has anyone had a similar experience of this with their cat? I was going to leave my mobile number with the neighbours we speak to and ask them to call if they see him. It's going to be hard to catch him as we have no idea where he goes.

Difficult question as he doesn't seem to be strongly tied to your house, one could even argue whether he is really 'your cat'. Someone else (or several ppl) must be feeding him..

When is the move date?

One option is that if you see him before the move, you keep him in your house until the move (and don't let him out) and then take him with you to the next house. You would then need to keep him indoors for a good few weeks at least so that he associates the new house with you and sees it as a new and safe territory. My guess though is that he will not take kindly to this! Cats form strong habits and he will hate the loss of freedom. If you want him to continue to semi-live with you though this may be the only way.

The other option is to hope that he randomly turns up at your new house on his rounds and starts to associate you with this new location. The risk bring that he feels abandoned and is not fed..