[Paul and Linda]

Hi All,
It's been a busy time readying the house for sale but were getting close and it goes on the market next week. We haven't contacted any shipping agents yet and I was hoping to get a few guidelines from you all on how things happen.

I am planning to put my notice into work only once the house sale has completed so we will have 4 weeks at my parents after the sale and then head off a few weeks after that.

Does anyone know what sort of time implications that has on shipping our stuff? Should we get them to load and send our stuff the day we move out, will it get there too early?

Any info and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

[markkellaway]

Paul,

We're in a similar situation, although we haven't got anyone to move in with if we can't schedule the house completion for when we want it! :uhoh

We are going to start getting shippers in next week for prices etc., but will aim to get them in to pack just a couple of days before we leave. It takes about 8 weeks for the belongings to get to the "other end" I believe so it should work out well. Obviously it does depend on your accomodation situation in NZ though.

Mark. :P

[wilson182]

It might be worth sounding them out to see how busy they are. Get quotes and decide on the company you want to use, then give them some idea of time scale, I know it depends on when you sell the house, but the last thing you need is for them not to be able to pack and ship your stuff when you need them too.

[GeorgeM]

We are going to start getting shippers in next week for prices etc., but will aim to get them in to pack just a couple of days before we leave.

Mark

Be careful at the sweet talking of the salesmen when you get your quotes. We used the Poole branch of Pickfords during our move from Nth New Forest to Chch in '02. Despite selling us a premium product they were rubbish - used mostly students on holiday and damaged a lot of our stuff through p*ss poor packing.

At the Chch end they were efficient and as helpful as they could be (the manager visited immediately that we discovered we had a problem, verified the poor standard and emailed the UK to confirm), but the damage was done by then. The UK side - Poole office and the Head Office which we dealt with eventually - were a real pain, stonewalling at every turn to cover up their incompetance and avoid any redress. It took us ages and much hassle to get some degree of refund on the huge price we had been taken for.

[sarahw]

Get at least 3 quotes firstly to check they're quoting for the right size container & secondly for comparison - they can vary quite a bit (you'll need to play them off against each other as they all over price & have margin to negotiate).

George is right - I think these companies do spend a lot of their moneyh on sales people. Watch out for PSS - excellent service in the UK - the packers were all mature men with years of experience & they covered our carpets & kept everything as tidy as possible - wonderful packing - but ruddy near on impossible to get hold of (in Wellington anyway- both me & zsj both had that experience) but they were a lot cheaper than Crown & everything arrived in good condition. Just a bit more unpacking at our end than the salesman had led me to believe too...

They can store your container at either end for you (at a cost which is worth checking as it is probably cheaper at NZ end to store if you need it). We left home 2 weeks before we left for NZ but didn't have furniture for a while - all in all West Byfleet, Surrey to Wellington took 8 weeks - they said it was 8 rather than 6 because of Xmas but our container arrived at the end of Jan... :?

[markkellaway]

Thanks guys, I will definitely watch out for this, and will maybe avoid Pickfords altogether now!

Thanks for sharing. :nice1

Mark. :P

[lindajax]

Guys,
get the quotes and make your choice

We shipped our stuff 4 weeks before we left and it arrived a few days after us and we moved into our rental as it cleared customs ( about 8 days later) so don't worry about that it takes approx 30 days plus for your stuff to travel BUT it probably won't be loaded onto the container ship for about a week after it is collected from your house ( ours was a week and a day after collection).

you don't need to give the company an address before shipping - we didn't we rang them when we got to NZ and said 'we'll ring you when we get a rental' and then arrange delivery and it all went okay.

hope this helps
Linda x

[Paul and Linda]

Thanks chaps(esses), missed your replies, just found them, very useful, got to get started this week, I'm guessing on about 3K for a 20 footer (not self packed) from middlesbrough which is a port after all.

any thoughts?

[markkellaway]

Paul & Linda,

Had our first quote from White's yesterday, waiting for a GB Liners quote. White's was for £3500 (ish) for full service but in a SHARED container. Don't know if this is normal for Whites now but the agent told us they would not move on the price once they had quoted. This did NOT include insurance either so seemed a little over the top. I too am thinking of £3000 for a sole use, plus insurance, I'll post when we get the next quote.

Mark. :P