Guides
Guides to moving in London, with the facts dated
Written from the councils' own pages by a named person, with the date we checked printed on every guide. Where a council contradicts itself, we print both figures and say so.
All guides
- London parking suspensions for moving house
- Parking suspension vs dispensation
- Barnet parking suspension and dispensation for moving house
- Camden parking suspension
- Enfield parking on moving day
- Hackney parking suspension
- Haringey parking suspension
- Islington parking suspension
- Red route dispensations
- ULEZ, removals vans and the Congestion Charge on moving day
- Bromley parking suspension
- Lambeth parking suspension
- Southwark parking suspension
Parking and permits
Reserving the kerb outside your door, borough by borough: the notice each council wants, the fees, and the concessions nobody mentions.
Start with these
- London parking suspensions for moving house: what every borough charges
The same one-day parking suspension costs £66.66 in Camden and £360 in Haringey. Fees, notice periods and removals concessions for nine boroughs, compared.
- Parking suspension vs dispensation: which one a house move needs
A suspension reserves the parking bay; a dispensation only stops the ticket. That difference decides what a house move needs, and what each borough charges.
Borough by borough
- Barnet parking suspension and dispensation for moving house
A Barnet parking suspension costs £171.39 admin plus £69.63 a bay at 7 days' notice. The £51.90 dispensation at 2 working days can suit a house move better.
- Camden parking suspension: the free first day and the £200 tow
Camden waives the first-day space charge and the £349.81 short-notice fee for house moves, so a one-day suspension costs £66.66. The real notice is 17 days.
- Enfield parking on moving day: no suspensions for removals — what to do instead
Enfield does not list removals as a reason for a parking suspension. The route for a house move is a £10-a-week dispensation, collected in person in EN1.
- Hackney parking suspension: why a dispensation cannot cover a Luton
Hackney's dispensation caps vehicles at 2.27m high and 5.25m long, so it cannot cover a Luton van. Only a suspension works, at 7 working days' notice.
- Haringey parking suspension: £360, two weeks, and the windscreen sign
A one-day Haringey parking suspension costs £360 — £280 admin plus £80 a space — at 2 weeks' notice. The van also needs a printed logo sign in the windscreen.
- Islington parking suspension, and the free loading rule for liveried vans
Islington wants 14 days' notice and £164.80 for a first-day parking bay suspension. A signwritten removals van can often load free of charge instead of paying.
- Bromley parking suspension: the cheapest and fastest of the boroughs we track
Bromley charges £40 a bay per day plus a £30 admin fee and asks only three working days' notice, which makes it the cheapest and fastest borough we track.
- Lambeth parking suspension: the fee before the fee
Lambeth charges a £98.83 admin fee before a single bay is held, £57.55 a space per day, and up to £156.31 more if you apply with under a week's notice.
- Southwark parking suspension: the £93 you pay whatever happens
Southwark charges £53.15 a space per day plus a £93 admin fee that it never refunds, asks for seven days' notice, and names removal vans as a reason to apply.
TfL, not the council
- Red route dispensations: moving house where the council cannot help
TfL sells no parking suspensions on red routes at any price. A dispensation costs £48 a day, needs 6 working days, and red lines take no late applications.
- ULEZ, removals vans and the Congestion Charge on moving day
ULEZ charges a non-compliant removals van £12.50 a day, everywhere in London, and the Congestion Charge is £18 in the centre. What applies on moving day.
Planning your move
The decisions before moving day: the van, the boxes, and whether to hire anyone at all.
- Removal van sizes: Luton, 3.5-tonne, and when to go one bigger
How removal van sizes map to homes, what a Category B licence lets you drive, and why a Luton is too tall and too long for Hackney's parking dispensation.
- Moving without a removal company: the honest guide, and the hybrid
When you genuinely do not need a removals firm, when a DIY move costs more than it saves, and the hybrid option where you pack and a man and van drives.
- How to pack electronics for moving
Back up first, photograph the cables, remove the batteries, wrap each device in anti-static bubble wrap and keep every screen upright. The full order.
- A moving house checklist for London, built around the dates
A moving house checklist built around London's real deadlines — the parking notice your borough demands, the ULEZ check, and what to do in the last week.
- The end of tenancy move in London, and how the deposit is decided
How an end of tenancy move in London is actually judged — the check-out report, what gets deducted from a deposit, and the order to do the clean and the clear.
- Moving office in London without losing a day of trading
What moving office in London actually involves — the building's rules at both ends, booking the goods lift, out-of-hours access, and the order to do it in.
Costs and charges
What a London move actually costs, read from the price lists rather than guessed.
Buildings and access
Lifts, stairs, estates and the buildings that decide how a move runs.
Moving to a neighbourhood
What a move is actually like street by street: the housing stock, the parking regime and the access problems a postcode does not tell you about.
- Moving to Battersea: the two completely different moves it can be
Moving to Battersea is two jobs: a Nine Elms tower where the goods lift rules, or a Victorian terrace where Wandsworth charges £43.40 to hold the kerb.
- Moving to Clapham: the flat share, the terrace, and the £156 you can avoid
Moving to Clapham usually means a converted Victorian terrace and a Lambeth bay suspension, where applying a few days late can add £156.31 to the same booking.
- Moving to Shoreditch: the warehouse floor and the goods lift that may not exist
Moving to Shoreditch usually means a warehouse conversion with a goods lift or none at all, and a Hackney bay suspension at seven working days' notice.
- Moving to Stratford: the lift slot matters more than the van
Moving to Stratford is mostly a new-build move: the goods lift booking decides the day, and Newham publishes its suspension charges only via its portal.
Moving out of London
One route at a time: whether it is a single day or needs an overnight, one load or two, and what changes at the far end where London's rules stop applying.
- Moving from London to Birmingham: the only route we do that is charged at both ends
Moving from London to Birmingham crosses into a Class D Clean Air Zone, so the van is charged at both ends of the job. What that means and how we price it.
- Moving from London to Cambridge: the cheapest long-distance move there is
Moving from London to Cambridge is the cheapest shape of long-distance move: close enough to do in one day, so there is no overnight and no clean air zone.
- Moving from London to Edinburgh: the overnight, and the zone you cannot pay for
Moving from London to Edinburgh is a two-day job, and Edinburgh's Low Emission Zone cannot be paid for — a non-compliant van is fined rather than charged.
- Moving from London to Leeds: the day is the cost, not the charges
Moving from London to Leeds costs nothing in emissions charges at the delivery end — Leeds decided against a clean air zone. The cost is the length of the day.
How these guides are made
Read from the source, then dated
A wrong notice period costs a real fine on a real moving day. So nothing here is paraphrased from another blog: we read the council's page, print what it says, and date the reading.
The rules every guide follows
- Every figure comes from the council's or TfL's own page.
- The date we checked is printed next to the fact set.
- Where a council contradicts itself, both figures appear, with a warning.
- A number the council does not publish is printed as not published, never estimated.