Questions
Before you decide what to bring
Grouped by horizon. The group on what happens when a horizon moves is the one most people on this site actually need, because almost nobody stays for exactly as long as they planned.
Working out the horizon
How precise does the answer need to be?
Not very. The table has five rows and the boundaries between them are soft. What matters is which row you are roughly in, because the advice changes sharply between rows and barely at all within one.
What if our horizon is dictated by somebody else?
A contract end date, a visa, a course, a tenancy. Use that, and treat any extension as a new decision rather than as a continuation. That is the distinction that keeps storage from becoming structural.
Should we plan for the extension?
Plan for the horizon you have and set a review date for the moment it changes. Planning for an extension that may not come is how people ship a household into a furnished flat.
Does it change what we should be quoted?
Substantially. A short-horizon move is a small shipment plus a planned hold; a settling move is a full household and no hold at all. Those are different quotations and the difference is not a tier.
Short stays
What should actually come?
Clothes, documents, a laptop, some books, and two or three things that make a room feel like yours. Almost everything else is better held at home than paid for twice.
Should we buy furniture here?
As little as possible. A furnished let needs very little added, and everything bought becomes a decision on the way out — usually a hurried one in the last week.
Where should the rest go?
Into a planned hold with a written inventory rather than a unit rented in a hurry. The list is what lets you make a real decision if the stay turns out longer.
Is it worth shipping a bed?
Almost never on a short stay into furnished accommodation, and people do it constantly. It is the single biggest item that usually should not have travelled.
Postings
What is the right split?
Roughly half. Bedding, kitchen things, a desk, books, pictures and any piece you would genuinely miss. Bulky furniture, seasonal items and anything that belongs to a house rather than a flat stay behind.
Who decides — us or the employer?
You, on what comes. The employer, on what the package covers. Where you want something the policy excludes, it is worth knowing that before the survey rather than after the invoice.
What happens if the posting is extended?
Bring the stored half over then rather than at the end. It is one move instead of two, and the flat stops being somewhere you are waiting.
Should we store at home or in London?
At home, on a posting. Storing the half you did not bring in the city you are only visiting is the most common and most expensive inversion of this whole site.
Settling
At what point does everything come?
Around the three-year mark, roughly. Past that, shipping is cheaper than replacing, a flat needs to be a home rather than a base, and structural storage stops making any sense.
What should we finally get rid of?
Anything not used in a year that you would not replace. A settling move is the right moment for that decision and it is almost always deferred past it.
Is buying furniture here sensible now?
Yes. At this horizon what you buy gets used, and it moves with you afterwards if it is worth moving. That is not true at any shorter span.
Does the loft and garage problem apply in London?
Less in flats and just as much in the outer suburbs. A house with a loft holds far more than anybody estimates, wherever it is.
When the horizon moves
Our short stay has become years.
The commonest horizon error in London. Act on the first extension: bring the stored goods over or deal with them properly. Continuing to pay while deferring the decision is the one option that helps nobody.
Nobody has opened our storage unit in two years.
Also near-universal. Have it emptied and listed — seeing an actual list is what unlocks the decision, and much of it usually turns out to be going to a charity or a buyer rather than to your flat.
We each have things in storage in different places.
A London speciality once two short-horizon arrivals become one household. Consolidate once, properly, with a list. It is the most expensive arrangement on the site and the easiest to fix.
Our leaving date keeps moving.
Genuinely nobody's fault and it is worth asking any firm for a quotation that states what happens when it does. A firm that has written that down has thought about it.
How we work
Do you survey every job?
At the property where the volume or access is uncertain, and by video where it plainly is not. On a short-horizon move a video call is usually more than enough.
Do you publish prices?
No, and no rate card appears here. The horizon, the volume and the access set the figure and none is known before we have spoken to you.
Do you move out of London as well?
Both directions, across the UK, and abroad by road, sea and air. Out of London is consistently the bigger job of the two.
Is any of this tenancy or tax advice?
No. We describe how a horizon affects a removals decision, which is a different thing. Tenancy, visa and tax questions belong with a solicitor, Citizens Advice or your own adviser.
Not covered here?
Email, or add the question to the notes on the quote form. The three we field most are whether to ship a bed into a furnished flat, whether to store in London or at home, and what to do about a unit nobody has opened in two years. The answers are almost never, at home, and have it emptied and listed.
Nothing on this site is tenancy, tax or immigration advice.
How long are you staying?
Both addresses, roughly what is going, and how long you expect to be here. A rough answer is enough — the boundaries between horizons are soft and the advice barely changes within one.