What a removal survey involves, and what to have ready

The short version

What a removal survey involves, and which form suits you

A survey establishes two things: what you own, and how it gets out of the building. Everything on the quotation follows from those two answers, because crew size, vehicle size, the loading order and the dismantling are consequences rather than decisions.

A video call is a guided walk around your own property. You carry the phone, the surveyor directs the camera, and you finish outside on the pavement. It suits flats and part loads, it can be done in the evening, and it works perfectly well from another city.

A visit suits the jobs where judgement has to be exercised on the spot: whole houses with a loft and outbuildings, pianos, safes, and anything that arrived before a wall was moved. Offices belong here too, because the building and its managing agent decide the plan more than the furniture does. Neither form is a lesser version of the other.

What a removal survey involves at the property

This is the useful heart of the appointment, and it concerns access far more than possessions. A three-bedroom house with a driveway and a three-bedroom third-floor walk-up are not comparable days' work, whatever their inventories say.

• The floor at both ends, and whether there is a lift. A second-floor flat with a working lift and a second-floor walk-up produce different crew sizes. In a managed block the measurement that matters is the lift car, not the lobby doorway. The longest item has to fit inside the car, and anything that will not goes down the staircase.
• Where the vehicle can stand, and how far the carry is. The surveyor examines the kerb outside your door rather than the postcode. Carrying distance from the tail-lift to the threshold is real time, and a courtyard, a bin store or a gated entrance adds more of it. A bay that must be suspended, or a red route where suspension is unavailable, becomes a line on the quotation rather than a surprise.
• The narrowest point on the stair, and the turn at the landing. Width is the measurement everybody volunteers, and it settles less than the turn does. A half-landing with a tight return will stop a sofa that cleared the first flight untouched, so the return is measured and photographed rather than estimated.
• The doorways, against your largest pieces. In a converted house the communal street door is frequently the narrowest opening in the entire job, tighter than the staircase behind it, and it is also the measurement nobody thinks to take.
• What comes apart, and what does not. Bed frames and flat-pack wardrobes nearly always have to be dismantled, then rebuilt at the other end, whereas a sprung mattress will not bend around a winding loft staircase. Where something will not come out intact, you hear about it at the survey rather than on the morning.
• What is in the loft, the garage and the cupboards nobody opens. Lofts, garages, sheds and fitted cupboards hold a surprising proportion of the volume, and after a long occupancy most of it. We open them while surveying, because what is behind those doors changes the vehicle more than the furniture does.
• The address you are moving to. Half the day happens at the other end, so it receives identical treatment: the floor, the lift, the parking and the carry. A new-build may also require its goods lift booked in advance. Our removal van sizes guide explains which vehicle those answers tend to produce.

What to have ready before the survey

Having this list to hand turns the appointment into a short conversation. It is also, almost exactly, the information any removals company needs to quote accurately.

1. Both addresses, with the floor at each end, and whether each building has a lift that works.
2. Access at both ends. Where a van can realistically stop, how far that is from the door, and whether a parking bay has to be suspended. Any height or weight restriction on the approach, which an underground car park and a gated mews both impose.
3. What is going and what is not, including the landlord's furniture, items already sold and the wardrobe destined for a relative. An inventory holding things that stay behind is an inflated vehicle.
4. Anything unusually heavy or fragile: a piano, a safe, a gym rack, an aquarium, a marble worktop, a tall mirror, framed artwork. Those change the equipment and the crew, not merely the volume.
5. Anything that will not dismantle, or that was carried in before a wall or an extension was altered. That is why surveyors ask how long you have lived there.
6. Your date, and how fixed it is — exchanged, completed, a tenancy ending on a stated day, or a month you have in mind. An unconfirmed date is planned differently from a contractual one.
7. Whether anywhere needs the building told in advance: a managing agent, a concierge, a goods lift booking sheet, an out-of-hours access window. Those sit in somebody else's diary and take longer to arrange than the move.
8. Who is packing — you, us, or a division of the work between the two.
9. Whether anything is going elsewhere, such as a storage unit or a relative's garage, because each additional stop is another load and another carry.

Our London moving house checklist places the survey in the sequence of everything else.

Why a video call is usually enough

The objection to a video survey assumes the camera is the weak link, and it generally is not. A phone shows the surveyor the same staircase, the same landing turn and the same stretch of kerb a visit would. Most London moves we price are flats, and a flat is a contained problem of a few rooms, one way out and visible parking.

Three situations are the honest exceptions, where we would rather attend.

• A large house with storage spaces. Unlit lofts, cellars, garages and outbuildings are where a camera underestimates volume.
• An item that may not come out at all, such as a piano, a safe or an oversized sofa in a conversion. You need a decision rather than an opinion, and a decision requires a tape measure.
• An office, or any building with a managing agent. The goods lift, the loading dock, the out-of-hours window and the building's own protection rules are four separate conversations, held on site and covered on our office removals page.

If a video call leaves anything ambiguous, we say so and arrange a visit instead.

What you get afterwards

A written quotation, naming the crew size as a number, the vehicle, the date and the arrival window. It states what is included, what is excluded, what happens if the day overruns, and the cover if something is damaged. Our guide to removal quotes explained works through such a document line by line.

Alongside the price there is a plan, which matters nearly as much. The crew arriving on the day carries the surveyor's notes: what is being dismantled, where the van stands, which entrance is in use, what was agreed with the building. A surveyed move begins with the first box rather than a discussion on the pavement.

What changes the number after a survey

A surveyed quotation does not drift, although the facts themselves can change. Four reasons are honest, and they are the only ones we act on.

• The inventory grew, because a loft, a shed or a second wardrobe discovered afterwards is additional carrying and additional loading.
• Access turned out different from the description — a lift out of service, a bay nobody could suspend, or a van parked much further away than the kerb suggested.
• A second address appeared: another leg, another carry, another parking problem.
• The day waited. Keys released late in a chain are nobody's fault, and a loaded crew standing in the street is still being paid. Delayed completions have their own guide.

What makes any of those legitimate is the order of events: we identify what has changed and what it costs, you agree, and then the work happens. A charge appearing first on an invoice has skipped the middle step. Fair and unfair revisions, and the difference between a quotation and an estimate, sit in removal quotes explained. Setting several companies' numbers against one another sits in comparing man and van quotes.

How our survey works

We survey every job before we quote it, by video call or in person, including the small ones: a studio, a part load, a single awkward item. The quotation then arrives in writing, naming the crew, the vehicle and what sits outside it. The number you accept is the number you pay. We are fully insured.

The method is identical across house removals, flat removals and man and van work, although the appointment is naturally shorter for a part load than for a house with a loft conversion.

Common questions

Basis for this guide

No council figures, statutory provisions or prices appear here, so nothing on this page goes out of date. It describes our own surveying method, written by the person who runs the surveys.