Canadian Adventure…Practicalities & Plans part 2
Posted on Sat 8 July 2006 at 04:57
Canadian Adventure…Practicalities & Plans part 2
Goods to Follow- all our boxes!
As a seasonal resident with a holiday home or an overseas student studying in Canada, you are allowed 1 shipment of goods into the country to furnish/personalise your holiday home or student digs, duty free.
We shipped over 65 boxes full of essentials and personal effects with http://www.cargobookers.co.uk who were very reasonably priced but not perhaps brimming over with helpful advice about the logistics of it all. Through lots of internet surfing and questions to those that had done it all before on the forums at http://www.britishexpats.com I was able to glean the information I needed. Most of the official info can also be found on http://www.cic.gc.ca .
When bringing in goods to Canada there are very strict procedures that need to be followed and there really are no corners to be cut. Each and every box we packed had to be labelled with our name and address, its destination and a box number but even worse than this was the fact that every single item in each and every box had to be individually itemised with its value and listed next to its box number and copies made in triplicate ( 1 for exporters, 1 for Canada Customs (when you land in Canada) and 1 for yourselves). Its one hell of a laborious process!
Once you get off the plane in Canada you need go to customs to declare your ‘goods to follow’ for your holiday home and then show them your list (ours was nearly 60 pages long!!!!) They will then question you briefly with regards to the contents of the boxes to make sure that you know the rules of what can and cannot be brought into Canada and once they are happy with it all they will stamp each page of your list before wishing you an enjoyable stay in Canada and you are then free to go on your way.
But beware!…..that’s not the end of it!!! Two weeks later when our boxes arrived we still had to sign & pick up paperwork and then bimble across the city to Customs Canada in Halifax for more documents to be stamped before returning the paperwork to the warehouse where our boxes were held where the nice kind gentleman was who ‘could arrange for his brother to deliver all our boxes for $400 (£160) if we wanted’……..we snapped this offer up as we had been quoted over 3 times this amount by our shippers in the UK and at this moment in time, the last thing we wanted was another long, tiring day trip to the city with a ‘U-Haul’ and 3 kids in tow (not to mention 65 boxes to unload at the end of it!)
A week later all our boxes arrived much to our delight and it was little things like the saucepans that I found I had missed the most!!!!
Goods to Follow- all our boxes!
As a seasonal resident with a holiday home or an overseas student studying in Canada, you are allowed 1 shipment of goods into the country to furnish/personalise your holiday home or student digs, duty free.
We shipped over 65 boxes full of essentials and personal effects with http://www.cargobookers.co.uk who were very reasonably priced but not perhaps brimming over with helpful advice about the logistics of it all. Through lots of internet surfing and questions to those that had done it all before on the forums at http://www.britishexpats.com I was able to glean the information I needed. Most of the official info can also be found on http://www.cic.gc.ca .
When bringing in goods to Canada there are very strict procedures that need to be followed and there really are no corners to be cut. Each and every box we packed had to be labelled with our name and address, its destination and a box number but even worse than this was the fact that every single item in each and every box had to be individually itemised with its value and listed next to its box number and copies made in triplicate ( 1 for exporters, 1 for Canada Customs (when you land in Canada) and 1 for yourselves). Its one hell of a laborious process!
Once you get off the plane in Canada you need go to customs to declare your ‘goods to follow’ for your holiday home and then show them your list (ours was nearly 60 pages long!!!!) They will then question you briefly with regards to the contents of the boxes to make sure that you know the rules of what can and cannot be brought into Canada and once they are happy with it all they will stamp each page of your list before wishing you an enjoyable stay in Canada and you are then free to go on your way.
But beware!…..that’s not the end of it!!! Two weeks later when our boxes arrived we still had to sign & pick up paperwork and then bimble across the city to Customs Canada in Halifax for more documents to be stamped before returning the paperwork to the warehouse where our boxes were held where the nice kind gentleman was who ‘could arrange for his brother to deliver all our boxes for $400 (£160) if we wanted’……..we snapped this offer up as we had been quoted over 3 times this amount by our shippers in the UK and at this moment in time, the last thing we wanted was another long, tiring day trip to the city with a ‘U-Haul’ and 3 kids in tow (not to mention 65 boxes to unload at the end of it!)
A week later all our boxes arrived much to our delight and it was little things like the saucepans that I found I had missed the most!!!!
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