zenamethyst

In early stage 'do we' what if' etc wonderings in the middle of the night - we were quoted under £1000 to ship 20 tea chest size boxes and one 4 poster bed (comes to pieces) from Fife to Brisbane. The original idea was to sell everything once house is sold, apart from the bed, rocks, toys and sentimental stuff, and ship these out. When I rang the companies up to get ideas of prices (I know way too early!) and said maybe 30 tea chests to be one the safe side, the guy said that was an awful lot of stuff!

I saw a programme where the price of shipping went on the size of container -they basically fit as much as they could in and managed to get sofas, tellys etc in too.

We have a nice leather sofa but my husband says that we'll just buy a new sofa in Oz - from the sofas I saw over there they were'nt as comfy as ours and expensiveish. Our leather one (originally costing £4,500) set us back £260! I'm also attached to my chests of drawers, side tables etc as these are lovely old reclaimed wood and also match the bed! I've also got a 5 ft mirror with fancy gilt edging that goes again with the bed! Am I mad in trying to move the contents of a 2 bedroom large flat - leaving cooker, fridge etc lol - to Australia? Should I start being ruthless and slowly selling off everything?

Can anyone recommend a good shipping company? Tried 2 major ones - both with offices in Glasgow as we're 35 miles away from there. Really think I need costs of a container rather than tea chest size boxes. Also - how long does it normally take from when they pick them up to deliver them in Oz?

I am sending off both our passports for renewal as decided it's easier - before applying for visas!

Anyone want to buy a VW Passat R reg black with 6 cd autochanger??? When we've had it valeted its going on autotrader and proceeds to pay for visas etc! Low mileage too

Also - when I looked on the Oz high commission site the cost of a permanent residency on skilled migration visa seemed higher costs than what the agent has quoted - we were told £740 each, including a 3 year old, in total? On the website it reads as if it's (from bad memory) about $1,600 for first lot of visa application then another $1600 for remaining - each family member!!!????

I am very bad at reading forms unless they are straightforward (dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD don't help lol!) and the Oz high commission website and pdf's have my brains frazzled!

Thank you all for your help - brilliant site!

vics

Hi

You only pay one application fee for the whole family - so its what they call the "first instalment" of $1845 (or whatever) just the once.

I believe that you only have to pay the second instalment if there is an issue around english ability with anyone over 18 on your application.

But I'm not an expert - just talking from my own experience.

stressed out

We have been quoted of PSS ( reasonable price ) BUT The cost has risen £ 360.oo because of freight charges.so now costing £ 3,500 for a 20ft container without insurance . they say every haulage company has to charge this amount
john/rose

Stormz

www.eaglefreight.co.uk (ring the Ipswich number and talk to Sam or Viv). Mention the forum. We got £2750 for a 20ft container (950 cuft of stuff) from here to Perth. packing this end and we`ll unpack the other. No insurance.

Take your leather sofa. Personally I don`t like leather in Oz cos you sweat and your legs, bum, gonads etc stick to leather.... but if you have air-conditioning in the lounge-room you`ll be fine.

Go Banana's !!

Bring as much as you can. We brought the entire contents of a large 4 bedroomed house and we are still buying more as the houses have more living area. If you actually cost out what all your stuff is worth against what you would sell it for, against the shipping costs, it's well worth it. Furniture is actually quite expensive here for the good stuff, so if you have nice leather sofa that cost you that much, then it is well worth it.

I have said on numerous posts about this before, if you never listen to one piece of advice from this site ever again, listen to this one SHIP ALL YOUR STUFF, even the tatt, you'll be suprised what you need. I have a very good friend, who to this day regrets chucking out her old Marks and Spenser pans she had for years, as she bought some cheap ones to get her buy while in the rental (before moving into her nice new house) and they have fell apart.

You'll be so glad you did, trust me on this one, from one who is here and knows.

I would reccommend Crown, you will find them in the Yellow pages for your area. We have been very impressed with them.

Jill

walla

I agree bring the lot, we left a 3 piece back in the Uk for a mate which was a bad mistake.... we bought a house out here with 3 living areas so we've had to buy 3 new sofas and they aren't that cheap either..

Larissa

Have to agree with Jill, bring everything... it's very costly to replace and time consuming too. If you already like your stuff it will help make things cosy and you won't have any regrets about letting it go for next to nothing. I wish I'd brought my garden stuff but we ran out of time to clean it all, so I get a bit frustrated when I want to do a job but have to go out and buy the tools.
So keep looking for quotes, sounds like you have plenty of time. Also try asking about a reefer, think they are smaller than a 20ft container and some posters have been pleased.

joveazey

Hi,

We have just had our stuff shipped - no furniture except a big bedstead but all other items from 2 bed house, ie: rugs, mirrors, pictures, clothes, towels, duvets, toys, etc etc. Got a quote but th amount of stuff ended up to be far more than I thought. Cost us £1276 inc. insurance and we ended up with 50 boxes + the bed and mattress. That cost is door to door inc. packing/unpacking and the company is Excess International. We don't want to take our furniture as it is all 2nd hand stuff from when I lived alone so is not worth it and we wanted to have the opportunity to buy new stuff together for the first time. When you work it out, it would cost us the price of the shipping just to replace 100 cds.

Jo

lissysarah

what ever you decide, don't ship anything with Anglo Pacific - they were absolute ****!

Go Banana's !!

The correct name is ***** ******** I believe

Jill

walla

so I'm led to believe.....