Talk to me about removal firms

[BennyAndSwoon]

I am moving next month.

I need to organise a removal firm

Big national or smaller local?

How on earth do you start? Do they need to come and see your house?

Of the nationals does anyone have and recommendations / warnings?

You get a big book called the yellow pages.

Look up removal firms

Phone up a few and ask them to come and reccy for a quote.

The big nationals will be more £££ ime. You will pay more if you want the company to wrap and pack your possessions too and obv the further the distance between your old and new places will raise the price.

We used a small, local firm when we last moved. We moved about 4 miles. 4 bed house to 5 bed, not a huge amount of clutter and packed ourselves, it cost us about £950 almost 3yr ago (W Mids). They were fantastic though, fast, polite and very clean/careful.

They will need to come and look at your stuff so they know a) how much stuff you have to move and b) to see if you have any 'difficult' items like pianos or antique furniture

We picked 3 (2 nationals and 1 local) and went with the local one, very pleased with them. The local one and one of the nationals were around the same price; the other national quoted nearly twice as much!

It's definitely worth haggling whoever you choose - many are fairly desperate for the work atm.

Warning: check exactly what is included in the price - what are their 'extra' charges if any, do they dismantle furniture for you or not, etc. We had them pack for us and it was fab - went out for the morning having left house in its usual state and when we got back it was all boxed and ready to go. The next day they moved it all really quickly.

ThoughtPolice

I was going to post a link showing that i know how to use google

I would like to get the deal where they pack for me, but don't know if we can afford it.

Thank you for the top on the ts & Cs JimmyM.

Will try to get a recommendation for a couple of local ones and will randomly pick a couple of nationals.

Can I ask which national was really expensive?

The most expensive in our case was Bishops Move. They sent one of their most senior chaps for some reason (the lady on the phone seemed to expect me to feel quite honoured) and tbh I found him really officious and off-putting!

The other national we had a quote from was Pickfords. She gave us a book about moving house for ds.

Whereabouts are you? You might be able to get recommendations from local MNers.

Just checked what it cost us (moving from 3-bed to 4-bed), and was £900 including packing (packing was £340). We're south-east London/Kent borders.

We've been moved and packed by Pickfords twice - and they were really excellent.

They come and see how much stuff you have and quote - depending on distance, it may not be that much to be packed as well

We've used Pickfords twice, once was a local move and we did have a local company quote but they didn't supply boxes etc so once we factored that in there wasn't much price difference.

The last time we moved over 100 miles away and they stored our stuff overnight as we didn't want to be moving in at night! So they came back at 9am and moved our stuff in then.

It cost £1200 3 bed to a 3 bed, we took out their insurance for both properties should any damage occur whilst they were moving stuff out or moving it in. Plus they factored in the petrol and the fact that we needed a 2 team delivery, one to move us out, driver then drove. He stayed somewhere overnight and we knew our stuff was in a secure compound, then a new team and the same driver turned up the next day.

Make sure they look in your LOFT and every cupboard including the kitchen ones, some people ram them full

Thanks for all your help

Food for thought for when I start ringing round tomorrow

We got quotes from a couple of nationals and a couple of local firms and went with the local firm who we found to be excellent. They were more friendly and personal and when we had hideous problems on the movning day, they were far more accommodating and enabled us to store stuff overnight locally at minimal cost because they were local and didn't have to check with head office miles away etc.
They have to look in your house and, as Fizzylemondae says, make sure you show them everything that eneds to be moved and are honest about what you own so they can make sure to bring enough boxes for packing everything. Check with quotes that you're comaring like for like with what their insurance covers too as that can vary a bit.