Removals companies - worth the extra £.51k?

[anothermamabear]

We’re moving the contents of a 4/5 bed house 2 miles down the road. We’re getting the movers to pack for us as well and have had wildly different quotes from different companies. One’s around £4500, a couple around £3500 and the rest around £1800. Obviously it would be nice to spend less but is it false economy? I’m not sure what difference it will make. The £4500 is pretty outlandish and the extra money seems to go on glossy brochures and free pens. I’m more worried about my fish tank and plants not being broken…

I'd sooner hire a van and move the stuff myself than pay that! It's two miles...

Is your stuff worth more than 5k?

We spent around the £1800 mark for a similar move with full packing service. It was worth every penny and they did a great job.

1. the OP wants them to pack also
2. the contents of a 4/5 bed house need a proper truck packed and ready for the day of completion- a van would take multiple trips

No the spendy places aren't worth it. Get a local firm, we moved recently and paid about 2k for a similar job.

Full packing and moving is definitely worth it

The main thing is check they are registered with the appropriate body (association of British removals or something to that effect) and check the insurance levels.

It really depend on how much stuff you have and how much you value your headspace, time and money.

We rented a container at £100 pcm and moved our stuff into that progressively and then moved the stuff into the house after completion. We have our own transit so it worked for us. We are minimalistic by general standards.

If we had loads of stuff and no time, paying a couple of grand for someone to sort it for us would seem an attractive solution.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme nor reason to removals quotes. We paid under £2k (Inc packing) to move 1.5 hours from SE London last Autumn (3 bed to 5 bed). Highest quote was £5k.

We took the cheaper quote for an international move. They packed. We had 4 out of 5 beds damaged and two bottles of expensive whiskey (around £70 each to replace in UK), a stand alone hob, a speaker for playing iPhone through, a travel iron (!) and a couple of other things stolen. The more expensive firm who moved us out (husband's company paid that but we had to pay ourselves coming back as post retirement) we had absolutely no problems with.

The distance is irrelevant. Packing up a five bedroom house takes the same amount of time and effort whether you’re moving 2 miles or 200.

Edit - that should be “woeth the extra £1.5k ?” My point was whether it makes a difference using a cheap va pricey one. Turns out the cheap one isn’t registered at companies house and doesn’t exist anywhere except the interwebs. Not sure I want my house full of stuff being flogged off on eBay

think you are being overcharged I am shortly moving 3bed to 3bed about 4 miles for 1700 which includes packing.

Ideally we’d do that too but we don’t have the time or headspace to have to deal with it. Getting the place sold has been stressful enough. Having to pack and move it might just finish me off

Check out local Facebook groups for recommendations for a good local company and use one that multiple people have recommended going back years. We recently moved from a 5 bed about 30 miles away with full packing and paid £2200. They were great, took stuff apart as needed and put it back together again at the other end.

I paid over £6k recently and it was worth every penny. I’ve moved several times over the last 8 years ( last move for a while!) and used the same, more expensive company each time and it’s just so stress free. Nothing broken and couldn’t have been more helpful! Even took apart and rebuilt some things I had made myself just to be helpful (as in they didn’t need to be taken apart but I hadn’t built them very well!!)

No, we've moved a lot over the years, used removal companies and moved ourselves. The best compromised option was a man with a van who roped in his teens for £200 (we ended up giving him £300 as £200 felt too little, 40 mile round trip and took 2 trips in his Luton van).

Just to add we packed ourselves, but I hate removal companies packing for us.

I only paid for movers, and not packers as my EXDP refused to agree to it (despite the fact it was me paying the bill). Movers for our 3 bed semi plus shed were £1,500, we were quoted packing as well which would take it up to £2,300 (this was in 2021).

I would discount the highest and lowest quotes you've received, and go with one of the middle quotes; £3,500 seems about right for packing, moving and unpacking a 4/5 bedroom house.

Plus it'll be worth every penny!

We went for the cheaper option the last time and regretted it. I think that we saved about £1k, but the movers were not very nice at all and made the whole experience pretty unpleasant.
They asked me why we had "so much crap" and "what is the use of all these books", they refused to put things in the loft, despite quoting for it. They also damaged some items. However, what really upset me was that these men, who talked to me like I was a fucking idiot, were the people packing up all our family possessions. There was also a bit of swearing, inappropriate chat and a general attitude that they could not give a crap.
I decided to grit my teeth, make the tea, offer the biscuits to make sure they did the job and got the hell out of my house. I slammed the door after them when they left. I could not wait for them to leave.
We are moving again twice in the next 2 years and we will not asking them to quote.
We have paid more in the past and have had really nice movers. It is worth it.

Cost us £1700 I think north west for a full pack service and removal of a 3 bed semi

I would go with one of the middle quotes. They seem reasonable for a 4/5 bed house with packing service & obviously you want a registered, legitimate company offering insurance in case anything breaks or gets damaged.

We had a similar range of quotes - we ended up going with one of the middle range ones (about £2.4k for packing service and to move a 3 bed about a mile, but we were more like a 4 bed with the amount of stuff we had!) as their reviews were great and we liked them and didn't see the point in paying the extra for the more expensive firms.

We moved a 3bed to a 3 bed approx 7 miles and got quotes for removal only and they varied from £900 to £2800. We decided to pack ourselves to save ££. Most wanted an extra £1K to pack. For me the removals part was the most stressful part of moving. Would they turn up, would my glass table get broken, would they disappear with all my stuff. The reality was that it all went smoothly.

The expensive companies aren't worth it. We once relocated with my partner's employer footing the bill for removals. We had to get three quotes for the employer, and chose to go with big name firms. Their prices were high, but we wanted the reassurance of a household name.

At one point there was some question as to whether the employer would foot the bill, so I got a local firm with a good reputation but less well known to give us another price in case we had to pay for it ourselves. Their price was less than half the lowest one we had from the big name companies.

In the end, we went with one of the big names. They subcontracted it to the local company that we could have had for about 40% of the money. It's pretty clear how the big company made its profit in this case!!

We went on AnyVan and got two men and truck when we moved - it cost about £500 to have the contents of a 3 bed house shifted 5 miles down the road. We have more stuff now and I'm older and work full-time (on maternity leave last time we moved) so I'd pay extra to have someone pack for us, but not £4k extra.