House removals · Ealing
House removals in Ealing, where the move often happens in two parts
House removals in Ealing frequently happen in two parts rather than inside a single day. A chain does not complete when everybody expected it to. The old house has to be emptied weeks before the new one is ready. Half the furniture is going into store while the remainder travels with the family. This is also the airport corridor, so one portion of a household's possessions is occasionally being shipped overseas while the rest moves across the borough. Two parts is a different plan, not the same plan delayed, and we survey all of it together.
Written by Daniel, founder, Metro City Moves
Usual job
One move in two parts, with a gap between
Sets the order
What you have to live on in the meantime
Quote
In writing, after a survey
What is different here
House removals in Ealing is its own job
What changes the plan and the price here, rather than a list that would fit any London postcode.
What travels first is decided by what you live on in the meantime
A two-part move is planned backwards from the gap in the middle. The question is not what is heaviest, or nearest the front door. It is what the household still needs between the two dates. So the beds, the bedding, the kitchen and the children's belongings are loaded last and unloaded first. Everything that is not wanted until the second part travels underneath them. In a Greenford or Perivale house that generally means the spare room and the back bedrooms are emptied first. The rooms you are still living in are emptied at the end. That order is written down at the survey, room by room, and the crew works to the paper instead of to whatever is convenient on the morning.
A holding load needs an inventory that both ends can check
Anything standing still for several weeks has to be inventoried. The possessions that sit in store are the possessions people later cannot find, and the search invariably begins with a box nobody numbered. So the holding load is listed as it is loaded, item by item and box by box. The room each thing came out of is recorded beside it, and you keep a copy of the list. On the second date the same list is checked off as everything comes back in. That is the only way either end can establish that the load arrived complete. Storage itself is a separate arrangement, agreed at the same survey rather than organised afterwards.
Anything leaving the country is packed to somebody else's standard
Ealing lies along the corridor running west towards the airport, through Southall and beyond it, so a proportion of moves here are only half a local move. One portion of the contents is going overseas and the remainder is an ordinary house move inside London. We do not ship abroad and we do not handle customs declarations. A shipping company does that, and you appoint them directly. Our half of the work stays in this country: we pack what is leaving, we list it, and we deliver it to whatever address the shipper gives you. Where they specify their own packing and inventory standards, we work to theirs instead of ours, so send those requirements over before the survey.
House removals in Ealing need the second date fixed at the survey
An open-ended gap is how a move loses track of its own contents. Several weeks later nobody can say with certainty what went into store, what travelled with the family, and what is still sitting in the old house. So the second part is given a date while we are surveying, inside the same written quote as the first. If that date later moves, it is re-agreed rather than left blank. The borough is also wide. A move beginning in Southall and finishing near Hanger Hill or Northolt crosses it from one end to the other, and on a two-part job that run happens twice. We also need to know who is holding the keys to the old address in between.
Where this applies
The parts of Ealing this page is about
Named, because a page about an area in general is no use to anyone standing in one. These are the places where what is written above is what we actually find.
- Southall
- Greenford
- Northolt
- Perivale
- Ealing Common
- Hanger Hill
- Before you fix a date
- Write down what the household has to live on during the gap: beds, bedding, the kettle, school uniforms, work equipment. Keep all of it together in one room.
- Separate what travels from what waits before the survey, so both lists exist on paper rather than in somebody's memory. Storage is agreed then, as its own arrangement.
- If part of what you own is leaving the country, obtain the packing and inventory requirements from your shipping company and send them to us first.
- Give the second part a date at the survey, and tell us who is holding the keys at the old address until that date arrives.
- Establish where a van can legally stand at both addresses on both dates, because a two-part move needs that arrangement twice rather than once.
Questions
House removals in Ealing, answered
- Our chain has not completed and we have to be out. Can the move run in two parts?
- Yes, and in this borough that is an ordinary job rather than a favour. The first part empties the old house into store. The second part delivers everything to the new address on a date we agree while surveying. Both halves sit inside one written quote, so the job is not priced twice over.
- Half of what we own is going into store and half is coming with us. How is that split decided?
- Room by room at the survey, and then marked up before the day arrives. Everything carries one of two labels, waiting or travelling, and the labels go on while there is still time to change your mind. Deciding it in a hallway on the morning is what turns one move into two difficult ones. Storage is settled in the same survey, as a separate arrangement.
- Some of our things are going abroad. Do you ship them for us?
- No. Anything leaving the country is handled by a shipping company you appoint, and the customs side of it is theirs. We handle the portion that stays here: packing what is going, listing it, and delivering it to wherever they collect. Give us their packing and inventory requirements and we work to those. A long run inside the United Kingdom is different again — long distance removals is arranged at the same survey.
- What decides the price of a two-part house move in Ealing?
- Two visits rather than one, the volume on each of them, and how long the waiting load sits in between. The number of bedrooms says very little about any of it. We survey before we quote, the quote comes in writing, and the number you accept is the number you pay.
Keep reading
Everything else on house removals and on Ealing
House removals elsewhere in London
What people say
Reviews left by people we have moved
Left on our Google profile. Every card links back to it, so you can read the rest — including any we would rather you did not.
Good experience with Metro City Moves. 4 bedroom house seemed bit difficult to move from London to Liverpool, but they planned well and successfully executed. Thank you.
Saqib AwanRead on Google, opens in a new tab
Get started
Tell us where you are moving from
Send a postcode and we will come back to arrange the survey, which we can do on a video call.
What you get before you commit
- A survey first, by video call or in person, so the price is built on what is actually there.
- The quote in writing, listing what is included and what is not, so both sides read the same list.
- Anything you add before you accept is priced into the quote you sign off.
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