Picture this…. its Wednesday afternoon, the boxes have been packed for days, you’re living off takeaways and microwave meals…. but it will be worth it, because on Friday you’re moving house! Hurray! You can’t wait to get those keys and get settled in to your fab new place.
Except, you’re about to take a phone call which is going to ruin your day (actually, probably your week). There’s an issue and the move has to be delayed, by a week. AAARGGHH!
It’s a trend we’re noticing more and more. If we take 2016 as an example year, a staggering 62% of our removals customers had to cancel or postpone their move at short notice, at least once. That’s almost two thirds of disappointed movers who had to rearrange everything. Increasingly there seems to be a trend for exchanging (when the move date is usually set) and completing on the same day – which offers no advance guarantee that the planned date will go ahead.
As well as living out of suitcases for a little while longer, you may have people expecting to move into your property sooner, you may have set up utilities and deliveries – and of course you’ll have organised the physical removals process, most likely by hiring a removals firm.
As most people understand, as a removals company, we have limited vans, and removals teams, so it causes us lots of problems when moves are changed at short notice. For that reason, we do have to make a charge to cover our costs (our guys need paying, even if they haven’t got any sofas to shift!). This would be say 30% if you were cancelling with five days’ notice, but up to 75% if it was less than 24-hours before. It’s in line with the industry standard provided by the British Association of Removers (BAR). It also protects us from those people who like to book ‘just in case’ – keeping the spot from someone else who really needs it.
Of course, no one wants to be in that situation, but moving house can have so many elements that are out of your control, it pays to protect yourself as much as you can (ideally insist that the exchange date is at least a week ahead of the completion date, to give yourself some notice!).
To try and help, we do also offer a Postponement/ Cancellation Waiver, and we always recommend you take it out if you’ve any inkling or possibility that your removal date may change. The waiver is designed to provide peace of mind that if something does change at short notice, you’re not going to be left out of pocket. As long as you tell us before 5pm on the working day before the proposed move, you’ll be covered.
We can’t stop you needing to retrieve the kettle from wherever you packed it (you’re not going to do without a cuppa for the next week) but we can at least help make rearranging the removals plans more straightforward.
We also offer some more advice on trying to avoid finding yourself in a situation where plans change last-minute in this blog post.
So, if you need to move in Yorkshire, or beyond, why not give us a call? You can even book us in without a date – it’s one more thing off the list!