Household removals in Harrow

OK, so you want to move home. There are any number of reasons why.

· Your home is too small.

· Your home is too big!

· You want to move to a catchment area for a good school.

· You are renting and want to buy.

· You own your home but would prefer to cash in the equity and rent.

· Your job means you have to move.

· A retirement home by the sea beckons.

· You are getting married/ divorced!

The list is endless but the first step should always be the same, de-clutter!

Before you even start the process of moving you need to look at what furniture and contents are in your home, garage, garden, shed & loft; then ask the question, do I need to take all these things with me?

If the answer is yes then you are either the most organised of home movers or not being entirely honest.

Even a person moving from their parents home for the first time has things they do not need to take, which is why they usually leave them with their parents to move for them!

If you have lived somewhere for a few years then you will have acquired clutter; if you want to keep all this clutter then accept that it will cost you money to store this out of the way whilst you sell your home( possibly in self storage), then cost more money to pay for it to be moved.

Buying your new home.

You probably have a list of what you want from your new home and the preferred area to live in. As any house-hunting show proves, this will always involve a compromise between what you want and what you can afford. Prioritise the list in order of importance and be prepared to be flexible on items at the bottom.

Having found your dream home and once again had to negotiate over price; it is important to keep the legal searches moving quickly to minimise the risk of losing the property. Again, setting time limits with your solicitor is an important factor, as is keeping in contact with the estate agent/ vendor.

Regular viewing of the property on a weekly basis is also important; this will not always be possible internally, but should always be done externally at different times of the day/ week.

Vendors have been known to sell homes with railway lines at the bottom of the garden on days when there is a rail strike.

Selling your home

The first thing any developer does to maximise the value of the property they want to sell is to decorate it in a way that appeals to the maximum number of people and make it look bigger than it actually is.

You are not going to re-decorate your entire house, but there are small things you can do that will make a difference.

· Clean & tidy the approach to the front door, painting or repairing as required.

· De-clutter by packing excess ornaments, books etc. in to boxes & storing out of sight.

· Ensure bedrooms all have beds in them even if previously used as spare rooms or study.

· To make a small area look larger remove doors( trick used by developers in show homes).

· Kitchens & bathrooms sell homes so concentrate on making these look as good as possible.

· Tidy rear garden/ patio & buy a few new pot plants.

Note: If you do not have enough beds then lay down a bookcase or similar with a cheap mattress on top, it is important for buyers to see the room shown as a potential bedroom.

Now you have de-cluttered and tidied your home it is time to contact the local estate agent for a valuation. Even if you intend to sell privately or on an internet site, a good local agent will be able to tell you how the market is in your area and the correct value to sell at. Unfortunately as with most things associated with selling your home, it is not that simple, so ask 3 agents to call and be prepared for 3 different valuations.

Some agents will genuinely tell you the price they think your home can achieve, others will tell you a price they think you want to hear in order to get your business, then ask you to drop the price at a later date having wasted 4 weeks of your time.

There are various websites which will tell you what homes have sold & for how much in your area, the estate agent should also be able to tell you what homes he has sold and the price achieved. A small amount of time researching at this stage can save a lot of time and money in the future.

You will also be needing a solicitor and probably someone to lend you the money!

Recommendations from friends and family who have moved recently can be invaluable so ask anyone you know; whilst the estate agent will also be able to recommend contacts there is nothing better than personal experience, ask for names of his previous clients who have used these companies.

So you are prepared for viewings and now have strangers coming in to your home, opening cupboards, and asking personal questions about why you are moving. If you treat it like you would an interview for a job and be professional rather than emotional; remembering that you can ask them personal questions as to why they want to live in your home, then it will be less of an ordeal. Ensure you have support with you; partner, friend, agent, and make notes afterwards as to their suitability and anything you can do better next time.

You get an offer for your home which may or may not be the price you wanted; there then follows a very alien prospect to most English people of haggling! This is when your professional side needs to take charge of your emotional side when deciding what is or is not a good offer. Money should not be the only deciding factor, refer to your notes taken on viewing to see whether this person is likely to go the full distance in buying your property.

As the system in England for moving house is fundamentally flawed, just because you have an offer to buy your home is a long way from meaning you have actually sold it. It is just that, an offer! The buyer will then want to survey your home through his solicitor as well as carrying out searches for potential problems such as HS2 at the bottom of your garden. This is a very drawn out affair with everyone seeming to move as slowly as possible whilst telling you the homeowner as little as possible!

The only way to maintain some control is to set time limits through your own solicitor for this work to be done at the outset, with the knowledge that you will continue to market your home if these time limits are not met. This is not ideal and may seem unfair on the purchaser, but you may otherwise find yourself selling your home 3 or 4 times over a period of months before finally getting to the point of exchange of contracts.

It is only when your solicitor exchanges contracts with your purchaser’s solicitor that you are finally in a legally binding contract to sell your home, until that point anyone involved can change their mind on a whim without any comeback.

You can at last organise all the multitude of jobs related to moving home.

· Arrange quotes for removal.

· Notify change of address to bank, inland revenue, council etc.

· Inform utility companies.

· Tell friends of new address.

· Start packing if not having professional help.

Continue de-cluttering, particularly from the loft/ garage.

Finally you have reached completion day, the day of the move; after saving space for the removal truck and seeing all your possessions loaded in to it, you now have to wait for the banks and solicitors to finish their job by transferring the funds along the chain of people moving.

This all has to be done on the morning of the move, and can result in delays to you receiving the keys to your new home if any of the solicitors/ banks in the chain are slow releasing funds.

99% of moves do complete at some point during the day; although it has been known for the correct money not to be available, homes in the chain not to have been vacated, or sudden bereavement to delay the move.

Once you are finally in your new home it is time to uncork the wine, remind yourself why you moved, and enjoy all the new experiences and plans for the future.