Removal quotes explained: fixed price, estimate, and the extras

The short version

Quotation or estimate

The two words are not interchangeable, and the difference determines what happens if the final bill arrives higher than the figure you were shown.

A quotation is a price offered for acceptance. Business guidance from nibusinessinfo states it plainly: a quotation is a fixed price offer that cannot be changed once the customer has accepted it. The trader is expected to hold that price even if the job takes longer than anticipated.

An estimate is a considered guess at what the work will cost. Citizens Advice describes it as the trader's best guess. You have less protection than under a quotation, so the eventual bill can legitimately be higher.

The practical consequence also sits in the Citizens Advice wording. Where you hold a quotation, the trader cannot charge more than the quoted figure unless there is a good reason. The examples given are additional work you agreed to pay for, or a price that was obviously a mistake. Their own costs increasing is not one of those reasons.

The heading on the paperwork is not the test. A document titled "estimate" that names a crew, a van and a single total remains an estimate. One titled "quotation" that also names its own exceptions is a quotation, and a careful one. Read the sentences surrounding the number rather than the word above it.

Why a price can legitimately change

Not every revision is sharp practice. Five reasons are entirely ordinary, and a carefully written quote identifies them before you accept it.

• The inventory grew: a survey prices what it was shown, so a loft, a shed, a garage or a second wardrobe discovered afterwards is additional carrying and additional loading.
• Access turned out different: a first-floor flat with a working lift is not the same day's work as a second-floor walk-up. Nor is a goods lift that has to be booked, or a van that cannot get within fifty metres of the door.
• A second address appeared: a detour to a storage unit or a relative's garage means another load, another parking problem and another carry.
• The date moved into a premium slot: the final working days of the month, Fridays and bank holidays are the dates everybody wants, and they are priced accordingly.
• Waiting at a delayed completion: keys arriving late is nobody's fault, and a loaded crew standing in the street is still a crew being paid.

What makes any of those legitimate is the sequence: the firm identifies what has changed and what it costs, you agree, and then the work happens. A charge appearing for the first time on the invoice has skipped the middle step entirely.

Why a price should not change

Three reasons are not yours to carry.

• The firm underestimated: getting the hours wrong is a pricing error rather than additional work.
• The crew was too small: crew size was the firm's own decision, taken after it had seen the job.
• It was never mentioned: a charge that existed all along and surfaced once the van was loaded is not a change in circumstances. It is a term that belonged on the original document.

That is the shape of the Citizens Advice position as well. A good reason means work you agreed to, or an obvious error in the figure. It never means a shortfall at the firm's own end.

Charges collected on your behalf

Several lines on a London removals bill were never the remover's money. A parking bay suspension is a council charge, and so is a dispensation where the council sells no suspension. The Congestion Charge and ULEZ belong to Transport for London. The firm pays them so the van can stand and travel legally, then passes them on.

Two things make that readable: they occupy their own lines rather than disappearing inside the labour figure, and they are passed on at cost. Combined into a single total they become invisible.

No amounts appear here, because they change and they differ by borough. The per-borough suspension fees are in our parking suspensions guide, and the difference between the two permissions is in suspension or dispensation. The vehicle charges are in ULEZ and removals. Each of those pages carries the date it was last read.

Removal quotes explained, line by line

Work down your own document and tick these off. A missing line proves nothing in itself. It is a question you have not been given the answer to.

• Crew size: how many people, stated as a number.
• The vehicle: which van, and whether the job is one load or two.
• The date and the arrival window: a date with no time attached is half a booking.
• Expected duration: how long the firm believes it will take, which tells you what a fixed price is assuming.
• Fixed or hourly: in those words, not implied by the layout.
• What is included: packing, materials, dismantling and rebuilding, floor and doorframe protection.
• What is excluded: named individually, rather than a gap where the naming should be.
• Overrun: what happens if the day runs past the expected duration, and at what rate.
• Public charges: which ones are passed on, and shown separately.
• Cover: what is covered if something is damaged, what is excluded, and what you have to do to claim.
• Payment and cancellation: when payment falls due, what a deposit secures, and the cancellation terms in writing.

A document answering all eleven is something you can plan a day around. Setting several quotes against one another is a different exercise, and our guide to comparing man and van quotes does that job.

Deposits and cancellation

A deposit is normal, and what matters is what it is attached to: a written quotation, written terms and a confirmed date. A deposit paid against a figure somebody mentioned on the telephone leaves you nothing to point at afterwards.

Cancellation is the part most people assume they understand, and it is the part worth reading twice. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 cover contracts concluded at a distance — by telephone, email or website — and contracts concluded off-premises, which includes the one agreed at your kitchen table. Within those regulations, a service contract ordinarily carries a right to cancel without giving a reason, ending 14 days after the day the contract is entered into.

The same regulations also carve several things out of that right, and one of the exclusions names "the supply of accommodation, transport of goods, vehicle rental services, catering or services related to leisure activities, if the contract provides for a specific date or period of performance". A removal booked for a particular day is transport of goods on a specific date, so the exclusion may well cover it. We have not found a decided case or regulator guidance either way, and we are not going to tell you the point is settled when it is not.

So do not plan around an assumed statutory right. What reliably governs your booking is the cancellation wording in the firm's own terms: how long before the date you may cancel, what happens to a deposit, and what changes if you move the date rather than cancel. Ask for that in writing before you pay anything, from us or from anyone else. A firm that will not put its cancellation terms in writing has told you something useful.

How we quote

Our own model, so you can see where we sit against everything above.

We survey every job before quoting it, in person or on a video call. The quotation then arrives in writing, with the crew, the vehicle, and what is in and out of it. The number you accept is the number you pay. We are fully insured.

Sometimes the day is genuinely different from what we surveyed: a lift out of service, a second address, keys that do not arrive. We tell you what it changes and what it costs before we do it, and that is the only circumstance in which the figure moves. It works the same way across house removals, man and van and office removals, although an office move has a considerably longer list to agree.

Common questions

Sources

Nothing on this page is legal advice. The regulations above set a floor; your own contract terms sit on top of it, and should be in writing before you pay anything.