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Peter Driscoll of ET Brokers Limited (www.etbrokers-removals.com) takes you through some of the trials and tribulations associated with moving to Europe and explains away some of the mystery associated with moving to France.

Contrary to general belief, removal companies are not the money grabbing organisations they are sometimes made out to be, well not all of them! The rate that you will be quoted, in general terms, is arrived at after a number of factors are taken into consideration. The load size, the distance to be travelled, the type of furniture, the number of men required for the job. To be able to give you a quote that will not vary, you then have to be able to provide the removal company with as much detail as possible, and here an inventory is essential. In many instances a visit by the removal company to the house is proposed and can be beneficial. It is not however, compulsory, as after years of experience the remover will know, after talking to you, roughly how much you have to move, and a full inventory will make this even easier.

You have no idea at all how much space your household contents will take up on a van and until now, no idea, as to how the companies prepare their quotes. BUT you do have a sneaking suspicion that when you tell the company that you think you have 35m3 that it is going to cost you more than if you tell them you only have 31m3. Above all RESIST this temptation.

Firstly, in reality the extra 4m3 of load should not significantly change the price, after all the lorry is going to its destination anyway and the only additional cost will be the extra hours needed to load and unload. Secondly, if on the day of the move the removal company announce that there is more than declared then you will be asked to pay more. When your belongings are already on the van and you have to move, you are not in a very good bargaining position! Thirdly, if the company has been told that the load is 'X' and in fact it is 'X' plus 5m3 there is a good possibility that something will have to be left behind, simply because there is not enough room on the van!

Not two months ago a client of ours (who had refused to give a clear inventory), was waiting in Montpellier for the removal van to take him back to Shropshire. He had stated quite clearly that his load was 'No more than 15m3', and had paid a reasonable sum of £650 for the move. On the day, the removal company arrived with a Van capable of carrying 35m3, upon which they had already loaded 15m3 from another Client . Our Montpellier Client had over 28m3 of furniture!!!. The result, a second trip for another van. The client's belongings were left in a leaky garage for ten days and the client had to pay an additional £700 to another company to have the final load shipped back! It does happen, which is why the INVENTORY is so important.

An inventory achieves three important things. Firstly it allows the removal company to know exactly what is to be taken (especially if you note the size of each item). Remember here to include such items as Pianos (that may need three men to move them), Snooker tables and items such as Sit on Lawn Mowers and other fragile, bulky, heavy or strange objects. (We have had to get quotes for Boats, cars, and 48 Fragile Garden Gmomes who were going to Spain). Secondly in the event of an insurance claim you can PROVE that the removal company had the items concerned! Thirdly it helps you on unpacking to see where each numbered box should go in the new house. Using a simple spread sheet will make this even easier, and of course you can then use the same sheet to when sorting out your home contents insurance. The inventory itself should be detailed, but not to extremes, one of our customers diligently reported 247 pieces of 'Leggo'!!!

The inventory also allows you to re-assess just what you don't need to take with you. There is after all very little point in transferring from one attic store, boxes of items that have not seen the light of day in years to sit in another attic store. Now is the time to have that clear out that you always wanted. One client's load constantly changed from an initial 34m3 to 26m3 and then back to 32m3 and was eventually finalised at 28m3. The reason was Mr 'X' was finally persuaded to abandon most of the 'Home Gym' that had been purchased in 1996 and never used!

It is however not only load and the distance that can affect your quote. Please remember to let any remover know of any problems at either end that could affect delivery or pick up. If you are moving to or from a Flat PLEASE indicate how many flights of stairs have to be negotiated. I recently had a call from an irate remover complaining that although the flat was a first floor one, the client had 'forgotten' to say that there were six flights of stairs to get to the first floor!!! You guessed it, the price went up and the last thing any one wants is a debate about prices on the day of the move. Please also consider things such as narrow roads (or even 'no roads') at either end. Some large lorries do not act like 4X4s!! It is also as well to check if there any overhanging trees that could prevent lorries passing underneath, although there is one company that we use that always carries a chain saw with them' just in case!

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Through our research, we have found that most 'Brits' returning to the UK prefer to deal in English with a UK based firm. This reduces worry over quality control and language difficulties and above all
reduces insurance related problems.

We currently advertise our services throughout Western Europe though we shall, within the next six months be extending our operations to include several Eastern European countries.