How long do you get to move?

[2GinOrNot2Gin]

When you sell & purchase a house how long do you get to move the contents from A-B?

We're moving soon but my husband and I have very different ideas of how it will work. Our current home was our first and we both lived with parents so we had all the time in the world to decorate and move in.

I've tried to explain that it's completely different and that were likely to have to move everything in a few hours. He's adamant we can have a couple of days and it's physically impossible to move our whole life in a few hours. (I argued this is why people use removal companies but he's adamant we're doing a self hire)

So from being handed the keys to your new house, how long until you had to hand over the keys to your old house?

@WaxOnFeckOff and anyone else with a bridging loan in Scotland.

Can you recall how much it costs. Say per £100k of a bridging loan for one day? I know it won’t be an exact figure but it would help me work out if that’s an option for me next year. Or not. Just using the £100k figure for the cost of one of the properties to make it easy as it’s a round number.

I’ve heard it’s dear, probably as they calculate interest for the whole £100k property for the day. Is that how it works? So maybe £2k per £100k of house?

I honestly can't remember as it was about 16 years ago. We had an existing loan of £60k ish and new loan was £90k ish. I can remember it not being as bad as I feared it would be. We didn't originally have a gap but original sale fell through and if I remember rightly it was nearly 2 weeks we bridged for we were just relieved that we didn't have 2 houses permanently!

It would be worth asking your mortgage holder to get an idea.

Thanks @WaxOnFeckOff

If you can afford it it is much better to have removal people, and get them to pack too. When we moved from our first to second house we sat in the garden with our neighbours drinking coffee and they removal people did the whole lot. The move before that, when I moved from my own house in London to DH's Bristol flat was a nightmare, huge van I worried about him driving more stuff than I imagined and when we got there and the chip shop has just closed i cried. Never again.

Pay for a removal company. It's worth every penny.

we moved oursleves
BUT
we were renting and buying. We completed on house to buy 1 week before our rent contract was up. I went in an decorated kids' room.
Then we had a large van, a box van, so goes up over the driver's cab, not a works size van, and also rented a 'man with a van' We then asked 2 young guys from church who were students if they would like to earn a day's money to help. We paid them £50 each I think
So 4 men, 2 vans, plus me and car (I did plants and pets in car) and we moved the lot between school drop off and pick up.
Before we started, everything single thing was packed and ready. Most of it was downstairs too (very tight cottage stairs). bed frames were already dismantled and moved to new house, (because I painted them) kids slept on matresses on floor for a couple of nights.
So they only had to load the vans, no packing, no dismantling, etc, all curtains etc already packed.

And we didn't have that much stuff, no wardrobes for kids, etc.

So it is doable, but it is tight and needs pre planning.

Your sale goes through and only then can your purchase happen.. So rather than there being an overlap, there's a period of time where you don't own either house.

Oh and we only moved 12 miles away, so vans went up and down twice, with all furniture etc.

Then we just had to move the playhouse - that was nearly the last straw. Dh had dismantled it, but the panels only just fit in the van.

My husband decided to do this when we bought our home. We had more flexibility as we were renting the previous home so didn't have to put those keys in until 5pm & we had the new house key at midday. Even still, it was horrific. I unpacked the first load with my mum. I remember him arriving in his van with the second load in the dark, and wanting to kill him. What he saved in paying for removal men cost us in other ways !
Removal men all the way.

Back in the day bridging for a few days costs a couple of 100
Bridging is almost impossible to get now
Your mortgage lender certainly won't do it