Moving home is a stressful day for almost everybody to a certain extent. An additional level of stress during any situation can often lead to forgetfulness and mistakes during preparation, especially when its something you are not used to (*Luckily we are vastly experience at it here at Kitsons Transport). Here are the top 7 things that most people forget when moving home, as compiled from our house removals team.
To Create a Checklist
This is the first, and most important, step when getting yourself organised for the removal day. Without a checklist it will be increasingly difficult for you to keep track of everything that you need to do and pack. This checklist can mirror one we have suggested on our website here, or you can create ones with even more itemised details.
Make a note of everything from what items are to be packed, items are to be disposed of and items to be stored. If you have people helping you prepare to move then you could even separate the items out into sub lists giving people their own items to pack and box.
To Get Packing Materials
There is nothing more time consuming or frustrating than not having the adequate packing materials for the job. If you have created a detailed enough item checklist then you should have good idea of the amount of packing materials you need such as boxes, paper, bags and tape. This neednt cost too much money for example you can even get packing boxes for free if you look in the right places.
To Label Correctly
So now you have managed to pack everything but did you remember what box contained what? It is highly likely that you will want to get quick access to certain boxes when you move to the new property, make sure you label each box properly with good identifiers of what is in them. You can even label them by room or by importance such as having a box full of œfirst day essentials.
Organising Storage
Sometimes when you are moving home you have a gap in between the end date of one property to the start date of another. It is likely during this time that you need to use a storage solution for some of your bigger items such as furniture and white goods if you have them. You need to check out your local storage solutions at the earliest time possible to make sure you are not only getting the best deal but also that they have a storage unit available for you during the required dates! Leaving this to the latest minute, or forgetting completely could cause some serious issues during the move.
Notifying Schools
If you have children then as well as finding them a suitable new school, which you probably did when choosing your new house, you also need to make sure that the old school is notified in ample time. Several education experts believe that this should be done several months in advance so the old school can send anything your child needs to your new school ready for when you move.
Notifying The Council(s) & Other Organisations
We have found that many people genuinely forget to inform the council(s) that they are moving home. It is very important that you do this at the earliest opportunity or you could receive an unexpected council tax bill or even a fine if you have left it long enough and that is not how you want to welcome yourself into your new home.
If you are moving into a new borough make sure you find the details of your local council to contact and register, many councils now offer this service online.
As well as the councils you need to change the address on all your other organisation accounts such as banks, if you have online access to these accounts then this should be very straightforward and almost an immediate change.
Change Utility Providers
Change all of the utility providers you have over to your new address by notifying them of your move out and move in date as soon as possible. It is advised to not leave this step to the last minute as many providers can take days if not weeks to transfer accounts over properly. This may mean there is a crossover with bills and you end up paying more.
You can also use this as an opportunity to scope out new deals for utility providers especially for gas and electric as rates vary widely between locations for most companies. We often recommend using QuidCo for comparison checks and you can get cashback for transferring which saves you even more money in the long run.