A short stay · B
You do not know yet
Far more common than anybody admits, and rarely treated as a legitimate answer. It is one, and it has a clear implication: keep every option open at the lowest possible cost.
Undoing a small move is cheap. Undoing a full one is not. That asymmetry is the whole answer.
How to move without deciding
The asymmetry that decides it
If you move small and end up staying, bringing the rest over later is a single additional job, planned, at a time of your choosing. It costs one move.
If you move everything and end up leaving, you pay to ship a household into a city, pay to store most of it there because the flat cannot take it, and pay to ship it out again. It costs three.
Those two outcomes are not symmetrical, and the uncertainty resolves in favour of the smaller move every time.
Not deciding is different from deferring
Moving small on purpose is a decision. Leaving a storage unit unopened for two years because nobody wants to think about it is not, and the difference shows up in the charges.
So the arrangement that works is a deliberate hold with a written list and a date in the diary to look at it again. Both cost nothing and both are almost always skipped.
What to tell a removals firm
That you do not know. It sounds unhelpful and it is the most useful thing you can say, because it changes the recommendation completely — from a household shipment to a small move plus a planned hold.
A firm that cannot work with that answer is quoting for the job it would prefer rather than the one you have.
And when it resolves
It usually does, within a year or so, and in one of two directions. If you are staying, the stored half comes over as a single planned job. If you are going, it never travelled to London at all, which was the point.
You do not know yet
Questions about you do not know yet
- Is "we do not know" a real answer?
- Yes, and a common one. It has a clear implication: move as though it is short, because that keeps every option open at the lowest cost.
- Why does small win when it is uncertain?
- Because the outcomes are not symmetrical. Moving small and staying costs one extra job later; moving everything and leaving costs three.
- Should we sell anything?
- Not yet, and set a date to revisit rather than leaving it open. A short or uncertain horizon is a poor moment for permanent decisions about your own furniture.
- What should we buy in London?
- Only what a furnished flat genuinely lacks, and second-hand where you can. Anything bought becomes a decision when the horizon resolves.
- What do we tell the removals firm?
- That you do not know. It changes the recommendation completely, and a firm that cannot work with it is quoting for the job it would prefer.
- What happens when we find out?
- If you are staying, the stored half comes over as one planned job. If you are leaving, it never came to London at all — which was the whole point.
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.