Removals with same day exchange and completion

[Candycane2020]

I’ve heard that same day exchange and completion is quite normal (we have never done this before and always had a delay!). So now I’m worried about removals. We are using a full packing and moving service with costs quite a bit. They want a 50% non-refundable deposit which we lose if we don’t give at least 10 working days notice of a change of date. Or we will lose 100% is there’s a problem on the day. Do we just have to take the risk?

I feel so stuck with this! Solicitors are closed until 4th!

We were advised by our conveyancer that exchange and completion would happen on the same day because of Covid. (Didn't make much sense to me but as long as it got done I didn't care.)

However we were 'fortunate' that we could exchange and complete on the Friday and move the following Tuesday and Wednesday i.e. pack on Tuesday, move on Wednesday. We got a discount from our removal company for not moving on a Friday which we were aware of.

We were not asked for a deposit, either which we found odd. However, all went ahead as planned.

We were not asked for a deposit regarding the purchase of our house, just to be clear.

I had been rescheduling our move date for a month with our movers. This because our vendor couldn't/wouldn't/didn't pull his finger out with regard to some sort of caveat to do with his new house, i.e. what's the legality of the caveat. Anyway, it all got sorted.

Do you know why they are insisting on same day? Are they on such a tight timescale that they can’t leave a gap of at least a few days?