One named instructing party

Why who is paying

Because in London it is frequently not the householder. A letting agent books a move a tenant has never been told about. An employer signs off a relocation whose exclusions the employee has not read. An insurer authorises part of a job after an escape of water. An executor instructs while three beneficiaries hold views. A council schedules a decant nobody chose.

The furniture is the same in all of those. Everything else is different — who signs, whose word the crew acts on, who receives the invoice, and what happens when two people want opposite things. Sorting a move by property type tells you which van to send. Sorting it by who is paying tells you how the day will actually go.

One name, in writing, before we start

It is the single most useful thing we do and it takes a line on a form. We ask who is instructing, who is paying, and in what capacity — an executor as executor, an agent as agent. That goes into the quotation, and everybody else involved talks to the named person rather than to the crew.

It sounds bureaucratic written down. It prevents nearly everything in the instruction table and the section that follows it.

And we always speak to the householder

Whoever made the booking. If an agent or a company would rather be the only point of contact, we say no, politely and consistently.

It is how we find out about the loft, the piece that must not be dismantled, the cat, and the fact that a family is not actually travelling on the date the company gave us. It occasionally irritates somebody and it has never once been the wrong call.

What we will not do, whoever is paying

Dispose of a tenant’s belongings because a landlord asked. Take instructions from a beneficiary who is not the executor. Start unauthorised work on an insurance claim in the hope of later approval. Carry out a decant over a resident’s objection. Fold an employee’s personal extras into a corporate invoice.

Those are published in advance, on this site, precisely so that nobody has to negotiate them with a crew standing in a hallway.

What we are not

Not solicitors, not loss assessors, not probate advisers, not housing officers. This site describes how those situations affect a removals booking, which is not the same as advising on them.

Tenancy questions belong with a solicitor, Citizens Advice or Shelter. Probate belongs with a solicitor or the executor’s adviser. A disputed claim belongs with your insurer or the Financial Ombudsman Service. We carry things, carefully, and we are clear about where that stops.

Where we work

Every London borough, described on the coverage page by who tends to be paying in each part of the city rather than by a list of postcodes. Out of London across the UK, and abroad by road, sea and air.

The names on this site

Landlords, letting agents, insurers, loss adjusters, employers, councils and housing associations appear here as categories. None is named, no relationship with any is claimed, and none endorses this firm.