Moving House Checklist – The Essentials
Moving house can be one of the most stressful events of your life, and as well as concentrating on uplifting your current life to a new address, there’s also a wide range of administrative tasks for you to think about, which can have a massive impact on your finances. Below, we run through some of the most important things to consider.
Contents & Home Insurance
It’s important that your contents remain insured before, during and after your move. Whilst professional removal company’s offer contents insurance as standard, it’s always sensible to check. If you plan on hiring a van, and moving house yourselves – it’s highly unlikely that your home contents insurance will cover your goods in transit, only offering this service when professional movers are used.
It’s also common sense to make sure that you have buildings and contents insurance up and running on your new home, as soon as contracts are exchanged. It can be an unwanted grey area, if the property is damaged between the exchange of contracts and moving day.
Inform Companies & Organisations
It’s vital that you inform both public sector and private sector organisations of your move. As a quick summary, here is who you need to tell:
- Department for Work & Pensions
- Inland Revenue
- Banks
- Pension providers
- Loyalty Card Providers
- Car Insurance
- Home Insurance
- DVLA
- Breakdown Service
- Doctor
- Dentist
- Utility Suppliers
- Phone, Broadband & TV Providers
- Mobile Phone Providers
- Workplace
- Schools & Colleges
- Clubs
- Newspaper/Magazine subscriptions
Negotiate with New Suppliers
As well as informing current suppliers of your move, don’t feel any pressure to remain with your new homes utility and service providers. Switching suppliers of things such as Energy, Utilities as well as phone, Broadband and TV gives you the opportunity to negotiate new deals, as well as take advantage of new member sign ups. A little bit of negotiation can easily save hundreds of pounds a year.
Stamp duty
Stamp Duty is one of life’s nasty little surprises. It’s a tax collected in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and is liable when you buy a residential property, over £125,000. In Scotland, you will pay a land and buildings transaction tax, instead of stamp duty. As mentioned, the tax kicks in at properties over £125,000 (or £40,000 for buyers of second homes) Here is how the tax looks:
- 0% on the first £125,000
- 2% on £125,000 to £250,000
- 5% from £250,001 to £925,000
- 10% on £925,001 to £1.5 Million
- 12% over £1.5 Million.
To pay stamp duty, you need to submit a Stamp Duty Land Tax Return and pay within 30 days of completing the purchase of your new home.
Watch your Credit Rating
If you move house frequently, your credit rating can take a hit. This is important because your credit rating defines how much money you can borrow, on what terms. It can affect everything from car finance, to mobile phone contracts.
Although moving house can destabilise and lower your credit rating, there are a number of things you can do to minimise the impact. Registering to vote at your new address helps, as being on the electoral roll is something checked by all credit agencies. Also make sure you close out any old credit cards, which are with old addresses.
Advice from Richardson Moving & Storage
As a family run Home Removals Company, we like to think that we know a thing or two about the house moving process. As well as keeping ahead of all of the legislative changes, we also have the unique opportunity to listen to customers concerns and difficulties before and during their move. Whilst we can’t remove the entire stress of a house move, we can minimise the stress of the removal of your goods, having developed a faultless moving process which encompasses everything from Packing and Moving, to Storage and export.