The loft
Boarding, Christmas boxes, the cot, the suitcases inside suitcases
Nobody has been up there since the last move. It is the single most reliable source of an underestimated volume, and in a Metro-land semi it is usually floored wall to wall.
Pinner · HA5
Most of a move happens in the house you are leaving
The new place is a delivery address. The old one has a chain attached to it, a loft nobody has opened since the last move, a contract saying which light fittings stay, and a handover hour decided by solicitors. That is where this firm puts its attention.
Free survey across Pinner, Hatch End, Eastcote, Rayners Lane and the Northwood Hills edge. Nothing quoted before somebody has looked in the loft.
Four outcomes
What is happening to the house you are in?
Every move on this site is sorted by the answer to that question, because it decides far more than the number of bedrooms does — who you are answerable to, what record the job needs, and whether the date is yours to choose.
It is being sold
A completion date somebody else sets, and a chain behind it.
A
The house is sold
A completion at both ends
The ordinary sale-and-purchase move, which is ordinary right up until the moment two solicitors have to agree on an hour. Everything about the day is shaped by a handover you do not control.
Read about this → BThe house is sold and you are taking less
A sale plus a serious edit
A sale where the new address will not hold what the old one did. The move itself is the small half of this; deciding, in a house you are about to leave, is the large half.
Read about this →It is being handed back
A landlord, an agent and an inventory waiting at the door.
C
The tenancy is ending
A check-out and an inventory
A rented house handed back to an agent with a clipboard. What matters is the state of the rooms once the furniture has gone, which is a different job from getting the furniture out.
Read about this → DIt is being let out
Furnishings out, or in
Your own house becoming somebody else's home. Furniture comes out and goes into store, or new furnishings go in, and both need a record because the next occupant is a tenant rather than you.
Read about this →It is being emptied
Nobody is moving in behind you, and the record matters more than the pace.
Nothing is settled
The old place has a date. The new one does not. Yet.
The last walk-through
Six places that get left behind
The same six, in the same order, in house after house. Print this, walk the property with it the week before, and the day gets dramatically easier — including the part where we tell you what cannot go on the vehicle.
The garage and the side return
Paint, the mower, bikes nobody rides, half a kitchen
Much of it cannot travel at all — fuel, gas cylinders and open tins are refused on the day, and finding that out on the morning is a bad time to find it out.
The shed and the garden
Pots, a bench, the water butt, a trampoline still in the ground
Garden items are heavy, dirty and slow, and they sit outside most people's mental inventory entirely. Anything anchored needs taking apart before the crew arrives.
Under the stairs and the airing cupboard
Tools, the hoover, linen, the meter cupboard box of documents
Small spaces holding dense weight. They pack slowly and they are the last thing anybody opens, which is how paperwork ends up travelling in a bin bag.
Fitted things you may not own
Curtains, blinds, light fittings, a mirror screwed to the wall
The contract with the buyer says what stays. Taking a fitting that was listed as included is the most common post-completion argument we see, and it is entirely avoidable.
The meters, the keys and the post
Readings, spare keys, a redirection, the alarm code
None of this is our job and all of it goes wrong without a list. We put it on the plan because an empty house with an unread meter costs somebody money.
None of this is a sales pitch — it is the list our crews wish every customer had gone through. If you would rather we walked it with you, that is what the survey is for.
Chain watch
Who actually controls your moving day
Five links, and you are the last one. That is not a complaint about the English conveyancing system — it is the reason we load early, plan for a wait, and keep a date provisional until contracts are exchanged.
01
Your buyer's lender
Controls: Whether funds are released, and therefore whether the day happens at all
You can: Nothing directly. What you can do is keep the move provisional until exchange and accept that a booking made before then is a hope rather than a plan.
02
The solicitors
Controls: The completion date, and the hour keys are actually released
You can: Ask your own solicitor what time of day completion usually lands in their experience, and tell us. It changes whether the load waits on the vehicle or goes straight in.
03
Everybody else in the chain
Controls: Whether your date survives contact with four other households
You can: Tell us how long the chain is at the point you book. A long chain is not a problem; an undisclosed long chain becomes one at the worst possible moment.
04
The council, where parking is controlled
Controls: Whether the vehicle can stand near your door
You can: Say so at survey if your street has bays. Suspensions are applied for in advance and cannot be arranged on the morning.
05
You
Controls: The loft, the garage, the shed, and what is actually in them
You can: This is the one link in the chain entirely under your control, which is why we spend most of the survey on it and very little on anything else.
Leaving the country
Moving from Pinner to Europe, by road
Four routes with their own pages, each carrying the road out, the regions we deliver into and a document list split between what you obtain and what we obtain. We are a road firm: anything needing sea or air freight is referred to a specialist rather than quoted here.
Pinner to France
Paris, Normandy, the Loire and the south-west, by road from HA5.
Route, customs and questions →Pinner to Germany
Berlin, the Rhine-Ruhr cities, Bavaria and the Frankfurt corridor.
Route, customs and questions →Pinner to Netherlands
Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and the Randstad.
Route, customs and questions →Pinner to Switzerland
Zurich, Basel, Geneva, Zug and the lake towns.
Route, customs and questions →An international move does not suspend the English property chain. How the European side works sets out why we usually collect ahead of completion and hold, rather than sending a loaded vehicle to Folkestone on the word of a solicitor.
Asked most often
Questions from around HA5
01 Why organise a removals site around the house we are leaving?
Because that is where the problems live. The new house is a delivery address; the old one has a chain attached to it, a loft nobody has opened, a contract saying which light fittings stay, and a handover somebody else controls. Getting the leaving end right is most of the job.
02 We have not exchanged yet. Is it too early to talk to you?
No, and it is the right time. A survey costs you nothing and settles the volume, which is the number everything else hangs off. We will pencil a date and treat it as provisional until you tell us otherwise.
03 What actually goes wrong on completion day?
Keys arriving later than anyone expected, almost always. A chain releases in order and the household at the top gets their money first. We plan for a wait rather than pretending it will not happen.
04 Do you look in the loft at the survey?
Yes, and the garage and the shed. Those three are where a quote moves, and in the interwar semis around Pinner Green the loft is boarded and full far more often than not.
05 Can you hold everything if the new place is not ready?
Yes. Goods are collected on the date that is certain, listed as they are loaded, and held until the far end exists. In a chain this is normal rather than a contingency.
06 Do you cover Hatch End, Eastcote and Rayners Lane?
All of them, along with Northwood Hills and the North Harrow edge. Pinner is the middle of what we do rather than the boundary of it.
More on the questions page — what a survey settles, why a Metro-land loft moves a quote, and what happens when a completion slips past the hour everybody planned for.
What is happening to the house you are in?
Sold, handed back, let out, cleared, or nothing settled yet. That answer plus the two addresses is enough for us to ask you something useful back.