Moving to a new home should be exciting, but it can also be really stressful. There’s lots of people to contact and notify, and a lot to organise and think about.
Before exchange of contracts – 4 weeks to go
- Get removals estimates and check availability for your chosen firm. Avoid paying a holding deposit if possible until contracts exchanged, and completion date confirmed. (Check again just before exchange of contracts)
- Order packing cases and materials if supplying your own
- Plan where furniture will go and consider what you are going to do with things that won’t fit in the new place
- Declutter and dispose of anything not needed
- Liaise with the other parties via the estate agents to discuss and agree completion dates which are mutually acceptable
- Verify with employers if you will be able to book time off work if necessary
- If buying, arrange to obtain buildings insurance proposals
We’ve exchanged! What should I do now?
- Contact your removal company to firm up removal booking
- If buying a freehold property you will need to arrange to place buildings insurance policy on risk as risk passes to buyer on exchange
2 weeks before your house move
- Notify any organisations of your upcoming move and new address
- Contact Utility providers to advise them of moving date and arrange for new accounts to be set up if buying, or arrange for closing statements if selling.
- Banks and Building Societies
- Home, Life and Car insurers,
- DVLA
- Passport Office
- Mobile phone provider
- Organise with the Post Office to redirect your mail for at least 3 months to ensure that any memberships or subscriptions can be dealt with once you are settled in your new home
- Contact the current occupants of your new house about the transfer of utilities
- Send your family and friends your new address
- Transfer TV licence to new address
- Begin running down the freezer
- Arrange with provider for your landline number to be redirected
- Organise who will look after your pets and/or children on the moving day
- Inform your GP surgery and register with a new one if moving area
- Inform Council Tax Department and ask for a final council tax statement if selling
- Transfer any plants or shrubs you are taking into pots
1 or 2 days to go before moving home
- Confirm moving day details with the removal company
- Collect up any spare keys you may have given to family, neighbours or friends and drop them off with your solicitor or estate agent for the new owners
- Put valuable items and important documents in a safe place so they can’t be misplaced
- Put together a box of moving day essentials such as tea bags/coffee and biscuits, cleaning products, rubbish bags, light bulbs, toilet rolls, tools and other handy items that may be needed straight away before boxes start getting unloaded – Don’t forget your phone chargers!
- Defrost the freezer
- Label boxes with the rooms they should go into in your new home
- Label items and keys for the new owner if selling
1 Day to go
- Defrost your freezer
- Leave details for your buyers about rubbish collections and instruction manuals for any appliances and heating systems you’re leaving behind
Moving Day
- Take the gas and electricity meter readings and details of the last call made from your landline before you leave
- Allow time for cleaning and set aside cleaning products, cloths and vacuum cleaner
- Lock all doors and windows in the house, garage and shed
- Give your keys to your solicitor or estate agent
- Pay removers if you have not already done so
After Moving Day
- Change Locks if purchaser (You simply have no way of knowing who may have copies)
- Unpack room by room, starting with the kitchen
- Take meter readings for utilities and check all are working
- Update the electoral register
- Update your pet’s microchip address and register with local vet
And relax…. enjoy your new home!
Moving home? Our Conveyancing team can help
Amphlett Lissimore is an established name within property law. We have experienced conveyancing teams based across our offices in Bromley, Crystal Palace, and West Wickham, who specialise in this area of law and can help you move house. We have a proven track record of excellent customer service and will always endeavour to make the legal side of buying or selling property as stress free as possible for our clients. We have been accredited by the Law Society under its Conveyancing Quality Scheme, and our lawyers include members of the Society of Licensed Conveyancers and the Conveyancing Association.
About the Author
Nigel Matthews is a partner at Amphlett Lissimore, based across our West Wickham and Crystal Palace office. Nigel specialises in Residential Conveyancing, both freehold and leasehold transactions as well as mortgage work and transfers of equity.