At Steeles, we have lots of tried and tested knowledge when it comes to moving you into your new home – but there’s one major rule that customers always ask about; we never take a booking until you have exchanged contracts on your new property.
When you know you’re moving, you’re more than welcome to get in touch with us for a quotation and tell us more about the details of your move, so that we’ll know roughly when and what to expect. However, we’ll never finalise a booking until your completion date is confirmed.
Regardless of how organised you are, there may be a number of hurdles along the way that need to be overcome to solidify your moving date. We promise we’re not being mean – we just know the industry very well!
Why do we have to wait until we’ve exchanged?
Usually, when we explain our policy to wait for an exchange, people will typically push back a little, which is completely understandable. In an ideal world, it would be much easier for us all to get booked in nice and early.
The sole reason that we refuse to do this is to protect you. We don’t want you to pay us to turn up on a day that nothing can happen, due to still waiting for the keys. What’s worse, is if there are delays, it’s usually out of your control.
The bigger the house chain, the larger the risk of a delay – but, problems can unfortunately pop up even in a relatively short chain. Hold ups do happen quite often, and they can rarely be predicted or avoided.
It’s a bit of a waiting game
By waiting until you’ve exchanged contracts on your new home before taking your booking, means that your move is definitely happening and the completion date is confirmed in writing. We are more than happy to make initial, flexible commitments if you have a rough date in mind, but this won’t be fixed in stone until you’ve signed on the dotted line for your property.
You are also more than welcome to get in touch with our friendly team to discuss your options and decide which service will be best for you, when the time comes.
Our rule extends to ALL of our customers, so please don’t think that some people don’t have to abide by the rules. We’ve been in the business for over 75 years, so trust us when we say that this is the best option to cover everyone involved.
As our policy extends to everyone, this assures our customers that we will not get booked up months in advance – we will do everything that we possibly can to ensure we’re available for the date you need.
The only exception to this is if you’d like a house cleared by our team and belongings put into storage before a move. However, even then, we won’t book an appointment to move your items out of storage into the new home until everything has been finalised.
In an ideal world, there should be a better emphasis from solicitors and estate agents to manage the expectations of clients in this regard – but this can be tricky with so many processes happening at the same time.
As everything will go through your solicitors and estate agents, it can be difficult as the home buyer – it’s easy to feel isolated when it comes to communications, as you’re not often involved unless they need something from you. There can be a lot going on in the background that you’re not aware of, which means some things can take longer than you’ve anticipated to sort out.
Completion date confirmed
When you get *the* call from your solicitor letting you know that contracts can be exchanged and a completion date is provided, it’s time to get the wheels in motion!
Your completion date could range anywhere from one or two days to a few weeks from your exchange date, but that should still be enough time to get booked in with us – just give us a call.
As we don’t accept any client bookings before exchange, we’re much more likely to be available for your date, as we’re not booked in with a client who’s move may or may not be going ahead on that day – so it works in your favour too. This way, we can be ready to move you quickly on your confirmed date.
To find out more about how we can help you, give us a call on 01780 763536, or get in touch via our contact form.
Before you know it, it’s time to move!
Completion day will be one of the most tiring, but exciting days of your life – everything suddenly starts to fall into place.
If you’re in a chain, you’ll likely only have a few hours to get your goods out of your home ready for your buyer to move in.
This is a point in the day where things can get held up quite easily, if other people have not moved out in time, or weren’t able to do the trip in one journey. If someone isn’t as prepared as they need to be, it can cause delays for everyone else in the chain. We’ll be on hand to help you whenever you need, working as efficiently as we possibly can.
You can find out more about our removals service here.