Removal company - how to coincide with completion?

[Pud2]

I’m due to complete next week. Have got removal company booked in but they now want me to confirm. Completion date is slightly up in the air and may be postponed by a week or two. Don’t know what to do. If I confirm booking I’ll lose money if we don’t complete but, if I cancel I risk having no removal company if we do complete. Or are removal companies used to this? Can you book them last minute?

It really depends on the company. They need to have vans and crews organised and if it's a small outfit they don't want to end up with crews not being used without time to organise other work.

We had a tight turnaround and lots of messing about by one of the vendors which meant we only exchanged a few days before completion despite having been ready for weeks but we managed to arrange removals with a larger regional firm.

if you dont have a completion date you have not exchanged and nothing is guaranteed. removers are used to flexible dates but yes if it all falls through you will lose some money, sorry.

if removers dont get this, go elsewhere.

have you got insurance quoted and ready for exchange?

No, we haven’t exchanged. The buyer wanted to turn around the sale in 6 weeks and named the completion date at the point of sale. I’ve just responded to the list of enquiries and the completion date he set originally is 1st August. The enquiries were fairly straight forward so we may meet that deadline but, then again, we may not! Not sure how much say I have as I want to delay by two weeks as I need to rent. All so stressful!

We chose our preferred movers and kept them informed until we exchanged, when we confirmed the date. They didn't ask for payment until then.

We've had a faff on with this recently because all the removal companies are pretty booked up. We ended up taking a gamble and booking in the removal company before the completion date was set in stone, deciding we would take the hit of the deposit if necessary. We were going round in circles and it was the only way we could see things moving forwards.