Leaving London
Moving abroad from London
An international move is the purest example of what this site is about. A company signs, a relocation policy defines the scope, and a family who has never spoken to the removals firm lives with whatever the policy left out.
Read the exclusions before you read the allowance. On every one of these routes, that is where the surprises are.
Four employer-paid corridors
Saudi Arabia, where residency has to exist before goods can clear. South Korea, where the housing arrangement decides the timetable. Malaysia, the one route here where the payer genuinely varies. Brazil, where the paperwork sets the pace rather than the shipping.
Removals from London to Saudi Arabia
Read the exclusions in the package before you read the allowance. That is where the surprises are on this route.
- Riyadh
- Jeddah
- The Eastern Province
- Compounds generally
Removals from London to South Korea
The word to look up before you move is jeonse. Then check whether your package touches it.
- Seoul — Gangnam and the south
- Seoul — Yongsan and the centre
- Incheon and Songdo
- Busan
Removals from London to Malaysia
On this route the first question is not what is going. It is whether anybody else is paying.
- Kuala Lumpur — KLCC and Bangsar
- The Klang Valley
- Penang
- Johor and the south
Removals from London to Brazil
On this corridor the inventory is not administration. It is the thing the whole clearance turns on.
- São Paulo
- Rio de Janeiro
- Brasília
- Belo Horizonte and Minas
The three phrases that decide a corporate move
Origin services, destination services, exclusions. Everything else in a relocation policy is detail around those three, and the third is the one worth reading twice.
Storage at either end is the exclusion that bites most often, because on several of these routes the shipment genuinely may have to wait — for a residence permit, for a housing contract, for a document that comes through a consular route.
Who we listen to, and about what
The employer decides scope and pays. The family decides everything practical, because they are the ones who know what is in the loft and which piece must not be taken apart.
It is remarkably common for a corporate booking to arrive with everything except a conversation with the people being moved. We insist on that conversation, every time.
Where the timetable actually comes from
Rarely from the shipping. On these four corridors it comes from a residence permit, a housing contract, a consular document or a registration — all of which are attached to a person rather than to a container, and none of which can be hurried by a removals firm.
So the useful sequence is to start the documents, then plan the shipping around them. A container that arrives ahead of its paperwork waits, and waiting is expensive in a way no quotation absorbs.
London origins, and the rest of the UK
We collect across every London borough, and from Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol where a consignment is consolidated before departure. Where a consolidation is involved we say so, because it changes how the goods are handled.
Moving abroad
Questions about international relocation
- 01
What are origin and destination services?
The two halves of a relocation policy. Origin covers everything at this end — survey, packing, materials, collection, export clearance and shipping. Destination covers charges on arrival, customs clearance, delivery, unpacking and debris removal. Packages often fund one generously and the other thinly.
- 02
What do relocation policies usually exclude?
Storage at either end, insurance above a stated limit, vehicles, pets and anything described as an ancillary service. None of it is hidden — it is simply not read until somebody needs it, which is generally too late to negotiate.
- 03
Who do you take instructions from on a corporate move?
The employer on scope and invoicing, and the family on everything practical. We insist on speaking to the family before the day even where a company would rather be the only point of contact.
- 04
Can we add things the policy does not cover?
Yes, quoted to you separately as your own decision. We will not fold personal extras into a corporate invoice and we will not tell a procurement department that a policy covers something it does not.
- 05
Do you go beyond these four countries?
Considerably. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland and Czechia by road; Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, the United States, Canada and Australia by sea and air.
- 06
Do you advise on visas, tax or immigration?
No. We are a removals firm and nothing on this site is immigration, tax or legal advice. Those questions belong with your employer's advisers or your own.
Where is it going?
Both addresses, roughly what is going, and who is paying. If an employer is, send the policy or the purchase order reference with it.