Office removals · North London
Office removals in North London, in buildings never built as offices
Office removals in North London usually begin in a building that was never built as an office. A first floor above a shop on Holloway Road, a converted townhouse near Archway, two rooms over a cafe in Crouch End. There is no goods lift, no dock and no booking sheet. There is a shared front door and a domestic staircase with a turn in it. Downstairs, a tenant is open for trade while you move out. The plan is decided on the stair and at the front door, so we walk both before we price it.
Written by Daniel, founder, Metro City Moves
Usual building
Offices over shops and in converted houses
Decides the plan
Door width and the turn at the landing
Quote
In writing, after a survey
What is different here
Office removals in North London is its own job
What changes the plan and the price here, rather than a list that would fit any London postcode.
The stair was built for a house, and the desks were built upstairs
Most of the office space here sits on the first or second floor. The building usually began as a house, or as a shop with rooms over it. The stair is domestic width, there is a quarter turn at the landing, and the handrail narrows the widest point. Nothing in that room arrived assembled, so nothing leaves assembled either. Desks and storage went up flat and were built where they stand. They are dismantled and carried down the same way, which is assembly labour rather than lifting. A first floor over a shop in Finsbury Park needs two measurements before anyone quotes: the office door width, and the narrowest point of the stair. Those numbers set the crew size and decide how much has to come apart.
One front door, and it is not only yours
The entrance is usually a single door beside a shop front, shared with the flats above and with whoever takes the shop's deliveries at the same kerb. The pavement outside is a trading pavement on Holloway Road or in Wood Green. The carry runs a trolley across a public footway, and the propped door has to stay usable rather than blocked. A high-street kerb will not hold a vehicle still all day either, so the load goes out in staged runs. Where the kerb outside is controlled, we tell you at the survey what has to be arranged and who arranges it.
People live above you, so the hours run the other way round
In a tower an overnight move is the obvious answer, because the floor is unoccupied and the lift is nobody else's. Here the building is occupied in both directions, above you and below you. There are flats over the office and a business under it, so a late finish is a noise complaint and a potential lease problem rather than a quiet window. Moves here tend to run on a Saturday morning, or on a weekday once the business below has closed. There is often no managing agent to book, which sounds easier and is not. The arrangement is negotiated with the landlord and the residential neighbours, and settled before the date is confirmed.
Many of these moves end in a unit with a yard, and that changes the vehicle
Not every office in this part of London occupies a converted upper floor. Out towards the North Circular there are light-industrial units and small business parks with roller shutters, level loading and a yard to turn in. That end of a move is the straightforward one, with level loading and no staircase. The common job is the mixed one: out of a high-street first floor and into a unit, where one address has a stair and the other has none. The crew and the schedule are written for the stair. The vehicle is sized for the tighter street rather than the yard, because a van that fits the yard and not the high street has solved the wrong half of the problem.
Where this applies
The parts of North London 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.
- Holloway Road
- Archway
- Finsbury Park
- Wood Green
- Crouch End
- North Circular
- Before you fix a date
- Measure the office door and the narrowest point of the stair, and photograph the turn at the landing.
- Tell us which desks and storage units were assembled in the room, because those are the items that have to be dismantled again.
- Ask the landlord what working hours the building permits, and get the answer in writing if there are residential flats above you.
- Let the shop below and the neighbours on the stair know the date before you book it.
- Say whether the new address is a high-street door or an industrial unit with a yard — that decides the vehicle size.
Questions
Office removals in North London, answered
- Our office is above a shop. Does that change the job?
- It changes most of it. The stair, the shared front door and the shop's own trading hours determine the plan, not the desk count. We walk the route from the kerb to your door at the survey and tell you what has to come apart.
- There is no lift at all. How do the desks get out?
- By the staircase, mostly in pieces. A desk built in the room goes down as a top and a frame, and tall storage comes down empty and flat. That is a bench job as much as a carry, and it is priced from the measurements rather than estimated on the day.
- Can you work in the evening so we do not lose a trading day?
- Yes, though in a building with flats over it an early Saturday is usually easier to agree than a late night. Check your lease for permitted working hours and ask the landlord before you fix a date, because that is the part we cannot arrange for you.
- Which parts of North London do you cover for office moves?
- The N, NW and EN postcodes — Islington, Camden, Haringey, Barnet and Enfield. High street and business park alike, so a move from a shop-front office to a unit by the North Circular is one crew and one price.
Keep reading
Everything else on office removals and on North London
Office removals elsewhere in London
Related reading
Before you book in North London
Parking suspensions, red routes and the ULEZ — read from the councils' and TfL's own pages, with the date each fact set was checked.
- Guide
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.
Read it - Guide
Controlled parking zone London: the hours belong to your zone, not your borough
A controlled parking zone in London decides when a bay needs a permit. The hours are set per zone, not per borough, and Islington alone runs 24 different sets.
Read it - Guide
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.
Read it - Guide
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.
Read it - Guide
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.
Read it - Guide
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.
Read it
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.
Talk to us about your move
Every London postcode, 16 services, and answered at any hour — including nights and weekends.