Hi, This has probably been done so apologies if i am repeating. We are moving to Sydney in UK in January and i am trying to work out the benefits of moving with furniture vs leaving it in storage here. it seems expensive compared to the value/cost of rebuying furniture - i have a few bits that i really like but a lot is quite old or replaceable
My company will pay for removals (up to a limit) but if i came back early (within 4 years) we would need to repay; plus I don't know whether i would have a job which would pay for removals at the end of the contract (assuming we don't stay), We have a lot of stuff.
also if we transferred our furniture we'd be left with a period with no furniture at one end or the other.
But then i don't know what we would do with it if we didn't bring it- we will be letting our house here and would expect it to be unfurnished and. although we may be able to loan some furniture to friends etc we would need to store or dispose of a lot.
Storage seems quite expensive and i'm not clear if that is covered by my company....
we will end up shipping more personal items anyway (books/toys/household goods) .
be interested in knowing what others have done and who they used for removals...

Thanks

It's a personal preference really, but there's no way I'd be storing stuff for 4 years. I also wouldn't loan it to friends even if they agreed to 'mind' it!

We recently returned to Australia with enough stuff to fill a 20 foot container - what we did was get our UK removal company to store it @ £30 per week inc VAT, and when we bought a house we contacted them to ship it over. If it was going to be arriving here in the standard 4 - 6 weeks timeframe they promised, all would be sweet. Unfortunately, they've advised us that the shipment won't be here until 1 November - which is 12 weeks all up. I'm still glad we shipped it though, as we'd only been in the UK for 3 years and all our furniture was new and expensive (I thought we'd be staying forever!).

You can get quotes from as many removal companies as you like, they'll come to your home, calculate what you want to ship, and give you a written quote. That will help you to decide if it's worth shipping all your furniture etc.

I'd advise you to either ship the lot over, or if you're not attached to most of it, sell what you can and give the rest away to friends or charity shops, keeping only what you can't part with to ship. The period of being without furniture prior to leaving and after arriving is just something that most of us have to manage.

Edit: I just reread your post and note that your company will pay for your removal to Oz. No brainer for me - ship the lot over!

It's also worth considering that if it's old wooden furniture you might have hassles and need it treated, particularly if it looks like it's had any infestation.

Cheap Ikea MDF is less hassle in that regard.

What happens to all your household furniture which is wooden (or wood framed) when it is inspected after offloading from ship in Sydney. This includes settee, dining table & chairs, bed frames & bedside tables, dressing tables, chests of drawers, wardrobes, coffee tables etc. Is it all pulled out and fumigated if so at what cost? and will fumigation damage upholstery?

If items are found to be infested, you'll be offered the choice of fumigation or having them destroyed. Both have a fee attached but I don't know how much, Google might throw up an answer.

We sold a lot of furniture before coming out here. We regretted it as it's expensive to buy and not as good quality.
If in need, there's always Ikea to get you started.

The other problem we had, we paid to have our stuff delivered to our house or local storage.
The removal company over here only wanted to deliver to a metro area and as we're not metro they wanted paying more.
They only caved in when we showed receipts to the fact and they got paid from the UK removal side.
Had the UK removal side refused we'd have been in limbo.
Best to check.