London · all thirty-two boroughs
Volume and distance are solvable with a larger vehicle and an earlier start. A managing agent who has not replied, or a bay that was never suspended, cannot be solved on the morning by anybody at any price. So this firm is organised around permission rather than around van sizes.
Free survey across every London borough. We apply for the suspension, we send the agent the certificate, and we tell you which of these apply to your address.
Who may have to agree
Only the last one is unavoidable.
Six addresses
Not the borough and not the number of bedrooms. What actually separates one London move from another is how many other parties have a say in it, and that is a property of the address rather than of the household.
A front door of your own. The kerb is the only thing you have to ask about.
Shared halls, stairs and lifts, and somebody who manages them.
Conversions, communal stairs, a freeholder
A converted house or a small block where the hall, the stairs and the front path belong to everybody. The lease usually makes the decoration the freeholder's responsibility, which makes protecting it ours.
What it involves → IIIAgents, concierges and goods lifts
Purpose-built blocks, mansion flats and new developments. A booking sheet, a permitted window, a goods lift and — increasingly often — a request for our insurance certificate before anybody gets a key fob.
What it involves →A landlord at one end, and a sign-off after you have gone.
A check-out and an inventory
The property is not yours and the judgement is made on the empty room. The permission you need here is not to move out; it is to be signed off afterwards, and that is a different thing to plan for.
What it involves → VOffices, dilapidations, downtime
Commercial moves where a building manager, a lease and a dilapidations schedule all have a say, and the cost of the move is small beside the cost of the hours you are closed.
What it involves →Buying time while other people make up their minds.
The permissions board
Print this, work down it, and a London move becomes an administrative task with a known shape rather than a series of unpleasant surprises. The order matters: the slowest party is not the one most people contact first.
Whether a vehicle may stand near your door at all
What it needs
A bay suspension application for the street, with the dates and the length of kerb required. In much of inner London a residents' bay cannot simply be parked in by a removals vehicle.
When to start
As soon as the date is firm. Suspensions are processed in advance and there is no mechanism for arranging one on the morning.
Use of the communal parts, and sometimes the day itself
What it needs
Notice of the move, and frequently a copy of our public liability insurance certificate. Some leases restrict moves to weekdays or to stated hours.
When to start
The week you exchange, or the week you sign a tenancy. Agents are rarely quick and the certificate request is almost universal now.
The goods lift, the loading bay and the key fobs
What it needs
A booked window in the building's move diary, lift protection put up, and in newer developments a fob or an access card issued for the crew.
When to start
As early as the building will take a booking. Popular slots in a large block go quickly and Saturdays go first.
Goodwill, and whether the shared hall is clear
What it needs
Nothing formal. A note through the neighbouring doors two days beforehand, which is not a legal requirement and makes a real difference.
When to start
The week of the move. It is the cheapest thing on this list and the one most often skipped.
The hour keys are released, and therefore the whole day
What it needs
Nothing you can supply. What helps is telling us how many households are in it so we plan for a wait rather than hope for a morning.
When to start
At the point you book. It is the single most useful thing a customer tells us and the one most often left out.
We apply for the suspension and we send the agent the certificate. What we cannot do is make anybody reply, which is the whole argument for starting early — and for holding the goods when somebody does not.
What a no costs you
Every removals website describes the day where everything is granted on time. These are the five where something is not, what each one actually costs, and the plan we have already made for it.
Costs you: A longer carry, sometimes a considerably longer one, and a slower day.
The plan: We survey the street for a second standing point before the day and crew the job for the worse of the two. Where a suspension is refused outright, the quotation already says what the alternative is.
Costs you: A move that cannot legitimately start, or one that starts and gets stopped.
The plan: We collect and hold. Goods come out on the date you have, go into listed storage, and go in when the building says yes. It costs a holding period and it beats a stopped move.
Costs you: Stairs, and a crew sized for a lift trying to do a stair job.
The plan: We ask the building for the lift's service history at booking, and where a block has previous we crew for stairs from the outset rather than discovering it at eight in the morning.
Costs you: A loaded vehicle waiting, and a delivery running into the evening.
The plan: We load early and plan to wait, which is why our start times look earlier than customers expect. Where the chain looks fragile we propose loading one day and delivering the next.
Costs you: A house you have emptied and nowhere for the contents to go.
The plan: The load stays secured and goes into store rather than back into the property. We return when the chain moves, and the booking contract sets out how that is handled.
Out of London
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.
Prague, Brno, Ostrava and the Bohemian towns.
Route, customs and questions →The city, Kirchberg and the cross-border belt.
Route, customs and questions →Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere and Turku.
Route, customs and questions →Budapest, Debrecen and the Danube towns.
Route, customs and questions →An international move does not suspend the London end. The bay, the building booking and the managing agent’s certificate are all still required — and a vehicle with a booked crossing cannot wait on a chain, which is why we usually collect ahead and hold. How the European side works.
Asked most often
Because in London that is the binding constraint. Volume and distance are solvable with a bigger vehicle and an earlier start. A managing agent who has not replied, or a bay that was never suspended, cannot be solved on the morning by anybody at any price.
Up to five parties, depending on the address: the council over the kerb, the freeholder or managing agent over the communal parts, the concierge over the lift and the loading bay, your neighbours over goodwill, and the chain over the hour. Only the last of those is unavoidable.
Ask the building. Whatever else is uncertain, the managing agent or concierge will have requirements — a booked window, stated hours, sometimes our insurance certificate — and they are the slowest party to respond.
We apply where a street needs one. We cannot guarantee it is granted or that a suspended bay is clear on the day, and the quotation says what happens if it is not rather than leaving it unsaid.
There is a written fallback for each one, and they are set out on this page rather than kept in the office. Most of them come down to collecting on the date you have and holding the goods until the answer arrives.
All thirty-two boroughs and the City, plus out-of-town moves across the UK and into western Europe by road. The permissions at the London end apply whether the destination is Highbury or Helsinki.
More on the questions page — parking and the kerb, buildings and agents, chains and completion days, tenancies and offices, and what the quote is built from.
Both addresses, and what kind of building each one is. That second answer tells us how many people have to agree before anything can happen.