Wonderland

Hi,

We are moving the family to Sweden / Stockholm area from London at the end of Oct. Does anyone have any tips for removal companies at a half decent price? I admit, we have to move a lot of stuff (three kids...), but I got a quote for £7,000 and that did not even include packing!!

Has anyone tried driving a 7.5 ton lorry over - my husband is toying with the idea now!

Any feedback is greatly appreciated as I am starting to run out of time...

Thanks!

Celtic Princess

We used a removal broker who dealt with everything. They arranged the insurance, the furniture removal, boarding of the pets and transport of the pets. They charged us £3500 (approx) for the furniture removal, £500 for the insurance (optional) and £4000 (approx) for the animals. The removal firm they contracted to was Britannia Movers International, the website is linked below, I don't know if it's cheaper if you contact them direct, or if perhaps the broker gets a discount.

http://www.britannia-movers.co.uk/

and the broker

http://www.removalgroup.com/

YYZlover

Looks like it cheaper to ship a container with household contents to Canada than move from UK to Sweden. And £4000 for pet transport? What pets were those? Elephants? I paid £600 to move a horse.

Celtic Princess

Two little westies and cat. When it came to the animals we had to take the easiest option, rather than the cheapest. What with everything else going on.

They were collected from our UK address the day before the move (Thursday), boarded in kennels for a few days, flown over and were then delivered to our new address the day after we arrived (Wednesday).

I've looked into it and know that the flights alone cost over £3000, so I think we got a good deal, all things considered.

The ferry on the other hand would have cost £10 each but there is no way all three could have managed the long car drive. The dogs, yes. The cat, no. The dogs and cat together? Only with UN supervision.

YYZlover

And those moving to Canada complaining about cost of shipping their pets should shut up. Add another 2k and I could fly a horse to Canada. YIKES!!!!!

Glad I only brought the horse to UK and back.

When I moved back to Sweden I stuffed my car full of the stuff I needed and drove from Glos to Dover, Dunkirque and up through continental europe. The rest I put in storage in UK. But am probably having that shipped out here as well. Might as well have everything in one place.... still got a case full of stuf in Canada though, waiting for me to move out there.

Celtic Princess

Another thing to bear in mind, there is a ferry from London (Tillbury) direct to Goteborg. It's a freight ferry but they also take ordinary passengers too. Not alot of people know that.

YYZlover

Yup. One of my best buddies wife used to work on it. ;-)

Not much of entertainment on the ferry though, but it is an option.

I have this insane fear of things not supposed to be able to float traveling across deep waters. Flying is fine, for some reason. I love flying.

alarholm

I moved from the UK to Denmark and used a company called kleberg & Co. They charged about £2k in 2005. They moved us again from Denmark to Germany in 2005 and cost about £3k but then we moved a lot more stuff then as we pulled everything out of storage in the UK too. So technically, they did the danish germany and uk germany move for us at the same time.

I would highly recommend them - i'm pretty sure they would do a swedish move too

Aly

bishop007

I'm getting ready to move later on in the year too and I don't know what to do about my labby dog. I just did a forum search and found this. I want to get some ideas on cost so I'll try removalgroup for a quote as mentioned below. But does anyone know of any other places to contact?

Celtic Princess

It depends how you want to bring you dog over and where abouts you are going to. If you want them to fly to Goteborg then you would need to use SAS Cargo, as far as I am aware they are the only company who carry animals on this route.

http://www.sascargo.com/SASCargo.aspx

I believe there are others who fly to Stockholm, like British Airways, but I don't know anything about it.

The other, much cheaper, alternatives are to use one of the ferry companies who carry pets or the channel tunnel. Both of these charge £10-£30 per animal. (Sorry can't remember the exact amount)

The closest ferry crossing which allows dogs is Harwich to Hook of Holland as far as I can tell. This is run by Stena Line Ferries.

http://www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/rou...ng-with-a-pet/

What is really important to remember is that the rules for bringing your dog into Sweden are different if you fly to if you bring it by car. The reason being that the UK is nasty doggy yuk things free, whereas the rest of Europe isn't. If your dog travels through any other countries on it's way here it will have to comply with the rules for animals coming from countries other than the UK.

Here is the Swedish Governments website which has the requirements your dog has to meet in order to come to Sweden. But like I said, remember that it is only considered to be coming from the UK if it flies direct from the UK.

http://www.sjv.se/home/amnesomraden/...880001370.html

Finally, if you intend to travel back to the UK with you dog at some point, you also need to make sure you comply with the UK rules, which are different from the Swedish ones. These are here:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/quar...res/owners.htm

Good luck. And feel free to shout me if you need anything else.

mazz1

Hi we moved our very much loved dog to sweden in june last year,I tried lots of places and eventually used Transfuranimals.com contact [email protected] tel no.0845 052 0013 they were excellent and even arranged for a custom made kennel ensuring that my dog flew on the same flight as me.We completed the necessary passport requirements although they did offer to do this and provided the information on what was needed.They also arranged a driver to take me and the dog to the animal export dept at heathrow where i checked her in myself.The driver then took me to the terminal i needed for boarding.Total cost paperwork ,flight, kennel driver £900.A bargain when you've got so many other things to think about.

fesuvious

£7000, sounds a little OTT.

Generally circa £5500 inclusive of everything is about right assuming a crew of 2 will be going over.

Immingham to Gothenburg is sensible for most Swedish destinations.

This rate is based upon whats called a 'dedicated run' whereby you have your own vehicle and crew dedicated purely to your move.

Obviously shared loads can cut costs, and of course any company that has access to a return load will be able to quote much less too.

Theres nowt better than a dedicated service, but then saving a couple of thousand is pretty handy too!

paul090971

I just had to respond to this thread, I have just arranged a 7.5T lorry for a house move from South Wales to Goteburg Sweden for £2.5K plus VAT exc ins.


Generally circa £5500 inclusive of everything is about right assuming a crew of 2 will be going over.

Immingham to Gothenburg is sensible for most Swedish destinations.

This rate is based upon whats called a 'dedicated run' whereby you have your own vehicle and crew dedicated purely to your move.

Obviously shared loads can cut costs, and of course any company that has access to a return load will be able to quote much less too.

Theres nowt better than a dedicated service, but then saving a couple of thousand is pretty handy too![/QUOTE]

rolypolyworld

[/QUOTE]
My worry is they don't damage any of my beautiful antiques..

fesuvious

£2.5k + vat certainly does save a couple of thousand,

but no insurance???? thats not wise.

7.5tonne > just pray they don't get stopped by VOSA on the way to the docks then.... otherwise many of your goods will be unloaded at the roadside, with no insurance.........

Its nice to save a couple of thousand, yes, but at that price, and with no insurance.... They are obviously making up the revenue in another way too. It sounds as though they might not have explained this.

Save money, its a good thing, but unless you care very little about the items you are moving then it is possible to be a little too 'care-free' about it.