Moving van Pickfords-type people - your recommendations (and horror stories!) please!

[TheYoungVisiter]

So - fingers tremblingly crossed - it looks like we are finally moving! We have never had professional movers before, always done it ourselves, but I have struck this time and demanded MEN. But haven't a clue who to ask to quote - the only ones I've heard of are Pickfords and on that basis I presume they are very expensive...?

Any recommendations? We are moving from London to Brighton.

And any ideas of cost woudl be v welcome, we only have a 2 bed flat but it's pretty stuffed to the gills.

We just moved and used some people called the Moving Home Company and I was very impressed with how nice and hard working they were. They packed everything for us too and we didn't have a single breakage.
We had a quote from Pickfords too and they quoted twice as much as the others...

we moved with Pickfords 5 years ago, 3 bed semi from Bristol to Kent. Cost about £1000 then and they got delayed with our stuff and we were without our stuff for 24 hours. Not the best move and annoying considering what we had paid

Thank you both - ScaryHairy, thanks v much for the website, I'll check them out.

Pickfords were actually the best quote we had - and they thought theirs was high - so evidently the others really really didn't want the business.

However, they were fine - so not always a horror story.

I went for one small local, one smaller national (the people with black cats on their trucks - I forget the name) and Pickfords for quotes, although like all things house related it was surprisingly hard to get people to even come and quote!

One other interesting thing - the difference between the "self pack" (they deliver boxes and leave you to it) and them packing was minimal - so they packed

oo that's interesting about the self-pack thing Squiggle, thanks for the tip! I would have assumed it was loads more.

Any more suggestions out there...?

We got quotes from 3.

Pickfords were ridiculously expensive. The one we opted for was a local family run business that had been around for 25+ years -they were fantastic! (Nowhere near you though so no point in recommending them)

We were also amazed at how little extra you had to pay for them to do the packing.

We moved 2 years ago - got three quotes all of which came in at around £1000 for a three bed house. That included the removals men coming in for a full day before the move to do all the wrapping and packing for us. They left us with beds, Pj's and toothbrushes for our last night in our old house.

I hear good things about James Removals - they operate out of London and North Kent.

Which did a report on this not so long ago and Pickfords is the most expensive!! I have used Pickfords twice mainly because we had such good experiences with them. Plus we moved quite a distance the second time so they packed up a 3 bed house, stored our stuff overnight and delivered it the next morning so we didn't move in in the dark. About £1300???

Things to consider - do they supply you with boxes and tape (that costs a fortune to source yourself)

Insurance for the property at both ends ie if they damage the walls of the property you are leaving or moving into

Insurance for your goods whilst in transit.

We packed everything up ourselves both times.

try more local companies, will be cheaper.

We used ANTs removals to move from London to Brighton last year (I had used them before for London moves) and they were really good. Not the cheapest - although cheaper than Pickfords. My sister used them on my recommendation to move from London to Surrey and she really liked them too.

Ants don't charge much extra (about £ 1- 200 iirc) to do the packing - they much prefer doing it.

We used Bishops Move and were very pleased with them (but this was 7 years ago). We got quotes from Pickfords and another firm and Bishops turned out the best.

Definitely worth every penny to have them pack for you - they will also insure for breakages (although ours were very minimal, just one white wine glass, and we've got a lot of glass!) if they pack, but often won't if you do the packing.

I can't remember the firm we used - have blanked it out due to PTSD...

We moved from London to Manchester 4 years ago. They turned up on time but hadn't factored in packing everything (which we'd asked for and was built into the cost...) as well as loading into the van.

So they were late getting to Manchester, were only able to put half the things into storage (most of our stuff went into storage for a while) and had to park up somewhere overnight. One of the young lads was a diabetic and didn't have his insulin with him.

The whole thing was a nightmare - I was 4 months pregnant and completely stressed out, ds1 was 2, we were moving into my Mum's after 15 years in London (so were very emotional leaving London anyway) and we kept getting calls in the middle of the night from the removal firm saying they were parked up on the motorway but did we know where the local A&E was for the diabetic...

We offered to put them up at my Mum's on the floor but they were OK and did return to put the rest of our stuff into storage the next day!

we had a very positive experience of pickfords

definately get them to pack, it makes it so easy!

We used Coles Removals
They were reasonably priced and super friendly
Good luck with the move

We used Maitland Bell last time we moved and they were fantastic. They turned up at about 9am, packed everything moved us (only across London), and unloaded all the boxes by about 4pm. There were loads of them, 7 or 8 I think, so everything got done really quickly. And they had fantastic legs in their summer uniform shorts.

I can't remember how much they cost but it was definitely worthwhile having them pack for us.

I've also heard good things about Cadogan Tate

Another vote for a local company (although ours was not local to you...).

And for getting them to pack .

Try try try to get personal recommendations or references - we had local firm from hell!

Turned up for quote in uniform, posh van, etc. V. impressed.

Day before move he came to pack us, on his own in cheapo polo shirt. He packed by going round the house finding something to fill up each box with which meant that nothing belonged together when we came to unpack.

Next day he turned up with some spotty work experience kid and they really struggled to finish us. Fortunately our buyer popped round and told us not to kill ourselves as they weren't moving in immediately, so we left the shed and plants etc til the next day.

The stupid people packed our necessities box which I had shown them as NOT TO BE PACKED which meant it took us days to even find the kettle. Lampshades, pictures etc were broken.

STRESS STRESS STRESS

Oh, and they had hired a tiny van which meant none of the garden furniture fitted....

So sorry I didn't say thank you to everyone who responded Thursday onwards - we went on holiday (not the best timing but arranged a while back). Thank you all for teh suggestions - your advice is deeply appreciated!

Move has been delayed a bit but hopefully should be happening next month - gulp.

Thanks again...