What people ask before booking a date

Once you have an offer accepted, even with no date in sight. The survey fixes the volume and tells you what the move actually involves, and knowing that early is useful whether the sale completes quickly or drags.

Every room, then the loft, the garage, the shed and the garden. Then the access — the stairs, the doorways, the approach and the parking at both ends. Then what you want packed. It is not a long visit and it removes almost all the guesswork.

We can talk usefully on the phone and we will not put a figure on it. A phone call cannot see a floored loft or a gravel turn, and a figure given without those is a figure that changes later.

Where an in-person visit is awkward, yes. They work well for flats and smaller houses. For anything with a loft, a garage and thirty years in it, somebody standing in the room is better.

Talk to one, yes. Commit money, no. Keep the date provisional until contracts are exchanged, and tell us the moment that changes. We would far rather hold a pencilled slot than take a deposit against a date that does not survive.

Longer than people expect, because the housing stock here suits both first-time buyers of flats and families trading up, and those two ends tend to join into the same chain. What matters for us is that you tell us how many households are in it.

We wait, and the plan already assumes we might. Waiting is uncomfortable and it is not a disaster; a crew sent away and recalled is a disaster. The load stays secured on the vehicle until keys are genuinely released.

It occasionally does not. If we have already loaded, the goods stay secured and go into store rather than back into an empty house, and we go again when the chain moves. Your booking contract sets out how that is handled.

Yes, and in a difficult chain it is often the calmest option. Goods are loaded, held overnight, and delivered once keys are confirmed. It takes the whole completion-hour problem off the table.

The loft, in a landslide. After that the garage, the shed, the garden, the airing cupboard, and anything screwed to a wall. Our walk-through list exists because the same six places catch the same people every time.

No. Fuel, gas cylinders, solvents, open paint tins, fireworks and similar are refused, and that is a legal and insurance position rather than a preference. Dispose of them before the day so they are not a decision on the morning.

We will take them if you want them, and they travel at your risk. Anchored things — a trampoline, a shed base, a washing line post — need taking out of the ground before we arrive, because the crew cannot start digging.

Your sale contract, not us. Curtains, blinds, light fittings and anything else listed as included stay put. If you want something that appears on that list, it has to be sorted out with the buyer before the day, not decided by a crew with a screwdriver.

We leave it clear and we sweep through. A full end-of-tenancy or pre-completion clean is a different trade and a specialist does it better — say the word and we will make sure the timings line up.

The inventory. Once the furniture goes, marks appear that nobody has seen for years, and the check-out is judged on the empty room. Book the clean after us with a gap, and photograph rooms as they empty.

Yes, and it is a common instruction here. Your own furnishings come out and go into listed storage while the tenancy runs, and come back when it ends. The list is the point: it is somebody else's home in between.

Slowly and on purpose. We list at the property, work room by room, and separate what is being kept, distributed and disposed of. Anything that looks like a document, a photograph or jewellery is set aside for the executor rather than packed.

No, and we will not pretend to. We record what was there and where it went. Valuation is a separate professional job and anybody who offers both at once is worth a second look.

In the old centre, yes — narrow frontages, a hill, and streets laid out long before anything needed a loading bay. It is workable with notice and unpleasant without it, which is why the survey looks at the approach as carefully as the rooms.

To work, yes: side access, a drive, a straight staircase. To estimate, no. They hold far more than they look like they hold, mostly overhead, and a bedroom count tells you very little about the volume.

Constantly — Hatch End, Eastcote, Northwood Hills, North Harrow, Ruislip and the Hillingdon edge. A job that starts and ends inside one of those towns is often better placed with a firm from there, and we will say so.

Yes, across the UK and by road into Europe. The leaving end is planned exactly the same way; what changes is the departure hour and the packing standard.

The measured volume, the access at both ends, how much packing you want, and whether anything is being held in between. Not the number of bedrooms, and not how urgent it sounds.

Goods in transit and in store are covered to the level stated on your quotation and storage agreement. Tell us before the day about anything of unusual value so it is handled and covered properly rather than discovered in a carton.

Entirely fine, and it lowers the cost. Cartons you pack are covered for damage arising from our handling but not for damage caused by the packing itself, which is the standard position across the trade.

As long as the gap lasts. The goods are inventoried at collection and the storage agreement sets out access and the notice we need to bring them back out.