[jaycee]

Is there anyone who had their shipped stuff stored at the New Zealand end who could give me a rough idea of how much it costs? I didn't think I'd need to, so never asked for quotes. It's a 20ft container, nearly full. Also do they unpack the container or just store it unopened?

[marcia]

Ask the company at this end who is doing the removals, but I'm absolutely sure if you check out some of the self storage places around where you are it will be much much cheaper!

We have the biggest storage unit possible at a place in palmy, (we had a 40 footer) and its costing us $250 per month, the removals company wanted to charge us a one off fee of $560 which is for the hassle of them having to unload the container and physically put it into storage since all the containers have to be emptied and sent back, and a weekly fee of $141. Also bear in mind that if you do go into storage with the removals company, you will not get chance to sort out the MAF fees yourself, they will do it all when the stuff is put into storage and charge you what they like for it!!!

We also found that the prices quoted to us by the firm in the uk, were cheaper than the company was quoting here - another rip off in the making, but we would definately have argued the toss if it had come down to it. But we decided to use our own storage facilty - this also fgives us the oportunity to take out any items whenever we like, like the kids toys and some more clothes now the weather is turning!

HTH

[Tia Maria]

Also don't forget to include insurance if its not already included.

Also if you do decide to store it with someone other than the company you used to ship it with, you might make your original shipping insurance invalid.

For instance if a vase was broken, how would you prove which company was at fault, the original shippers or the new storage company?

We shipped with PSS and had to have items in storage in NZ as we couldn't find a rental (sorry can't remember costs), they really scam you on insurance as they charge by the calender month. So if your goods were stored from the 28th March till 2nd May you would be charged for 3 months even though they were only stored for 5 weeks.

Also I'm not sure how it came about, but I was telling NZ Vanlines what PSS had quoted us for NZ storage and the lady said that it was way too much and gave me a better rate. So obviously the difference in quotes between NZ and UK can work both ways.

Whatever you do get it in writing. All the companies who came round to give us a shipping estimates also gave us an insurance estimate and a NZ storage estimate. So I would email/phone them and ask them for a written quote.

They had unpacked our container as everything arrived in a smaller van, but I don't know at what stage they did this. Also I'm not sure if we could have accessed our boxes or not, and if so where exactly they were stored and whether it cost money to do so before final delivery day. It would be worth asking about this if its important to you.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Tia

[Nathan]

Marcia, is your storage facility climate controled? Is climate controlled, accessible staorage available? Is the storage unit big enough to put the whole contain in it...with the contents still in the container. (I'm looking into buying a container and reselling after we're done.)

Tia, we're you making the calls to arrange storage, insurance, delivery after your container was in transit? I'm confused about your description of the PSS vs NZVanlines thing.

[jaycee]

Thanks for your replies.

Marcia, sounds like you got a good deal with the self-storage, and I can see the advantage of being able to get at your things - I'd love to have my tools and my toaster - it's strange what you miss! However even the one-off charge doesn't sound too bad, I paid a lot more than that to store 1 room's worth in the UK. Unfortunately there's no way I could shift everything myself, and having a removal van both ways would outweigh any savings.

Since writing my original post, the letter has arrived from NZ Van Lines, with all the forms and the list of things that weren't included in the price.... I'm already stuffed on the MAF front, as it's impossible to get a container truck to my house, plus "shuttle transport" to pay for.

Tia, thanks for the warning regarding insurance. Sounds like you had a similar situation to mine - PSS/NZ VanLines, delivering goods in a smaller lorry. Looks like they're going to get me for carrying stuff up the steps to the house as well - that's probably going to be $100 per step or something ;)

[marcia]

Nathan - the storage isn't climate controlled, and the one we are using wouldn't be big enough to fit a whole container into! Not sure if any would be really, how would you physically get the container into the unit??

We are covered on house contents insurance now, they are aware, and we paid an extra premium for having stuff at two locations. Ok we haven't unpacked anything to if stuff ids broken, well not the small items. We had an excess of over £500 anyway on our shipping insurnace so it would have had to something major to be broken to have made a claim worthwhile.

Good luck with it all everyone!

[Tia Maria]

Nathan wrote:

Tia, we're you making the calls to arrange storage, insurance, delivery after your container was in transit? I'm confused about your description of the PSS vs NZVanlines thing.

:laugh It is a bit confusing reading it back!

We got the quotes for storage, insurance & delivery when we were in the UK just in case we needed them and to also give us a complete comparison between the companies.

At the time we thought we had timed it so that our container would arrive just as we would be ready to move into our rental house and therefore wouldn't need storage in NZ.

However, we failed to find a rental so when they contacted us to tell us that our container had arrived in New Zealand we phoned up NZ Vanlines, (who PSS had arranged to organise our NZ end of the move), to say we would need storage. I told her what PSS had quoted and she said it wouldn't cost that much and charged us less.

Hope that makes more sense! :D

Cheers

Tia

[Rizak]

So ... you just paid the extra and considered it a good tip? That was nice of you.

:yes