The Wortley`s

Hi,
We are getting closer to our dream of immigration to Ontario so we are looking ahead of all the costs this will incure, one of those costs will be removal from UK to Ontario. Does anyone have any good experiences with removal companies that you can recommend that are reasonable in price and offer a good service.
Thanks Sally

Judeandandy

Hi there

We posted a similar thread a while ago, here it is, hope some of the answers are useful...

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=478493

We still haven't booked anything yet, had a quote from Fox for £930 for shipping; we aren't taking furniture, just books, paintings, various personal stuff... there is always more than you think! Anyway, this quote was for fifteen 45cm x 45cm x 45cm boxes plus a few odds and ends like a guitar, didgeridoo, rocking chair (for the Canadian porch!) etc...

lins and Stef McLachlan

Hi Sally,
We have recently had a few companies out to quote us to move contents of a 4 bed house in a 40ft container from Peterborough Uk to Windsor Ontario.
The results were as follows:

Whites (Lund- Conlon) Tel:01234 404411
£5612.00
Britannia Tel:01536 512019
£5695.00
Avalon Tel:020 8955 1335
£6980.00
Fox Tel:01633 488100
£6763.00
Bishopsmove Te; :01353 666600
£6200.00
As you will see the price varied considerably. My advice would be to get some out to give you a quote. The first 3 companies sent a representative out and the last two quoted me based on a 40' container without coming out. You do need to feel comfortable with the company and although I appreciate that you could get a brilliant rep, but a bad experience in the end, you kind of have to go with your gut instincts.
Only two of the companies stood out from the crowd though:
Whites(Lund-Conlon) as the rep was very thorough, did know his stuff, provided lots of additional info, and what seems to be some good advice. He was the only one who told me that the men would come out and pack and Box up all our stuff over 3 days and then on the 4th day the container would arrive and be packed up and gone within 4 hours, custom sealed in front of me.
Fox
The company did not send a representative, and really gave me a ball park figure, but did follow up the quote with a personal telephone call, with lots of advice saying that a representative could be sent out nearer the time and that the price he quoted could be a lot less due to cubic feet needed.

Hope this is helpful to all. We are not ready to go as our AOR is 30 Jan 06, so still a bit of a wait to be endured....sadly....I just wanted an idea, so that I could prepare for the bill...
Good luck with the application
cheers
Stef and Lins

The Wortley`s

Stef & Lins
Thank you so much for your reply that has realy helped us as we are a 3 bed detached with large conservatory, so I presume it would roughly cost the same.
Good luck with your application, our AOR is Aug 05 just sent 90 day letter document back, still got a long wait to go, we are looking at arounf july 2008 if all goes smoothly.
Thanks again
Sally

lins and Stef McLachlan

Hi Sally
Thanks for your reply, glad you found the info helpful...good luck and at least you will be there before us.
Cheers
Stef and Lins

QPRanger

We had several quotes

Brittania & pickfords just under £2000 for half container groupage.
GB liners didnt turn up to quote

Havnt made mind up yet on who a lot depends on insurance available

OnlineCB

Initially we weren't going to take out things but once we did a rough inventory we decided it was cheaper to send than replace. We had quotes from quite a few places but only visits from Whites and Doree Bonner. The young lad from White's was nice but not very assertive, then Whites sent us a load of paperwork that wasn't related to us, when I phoned to tell them they weren't at all bothered and that scared me so we went with Bonner.

They were excellent - it took almost 2 days to pack a 20 ft container and everything arrived here in perfect order. The agent that met us here on this side was great and we were really pleased with our decision.

Good luck.

Paul Wildy

At the risk of repeating myself over and over again I will let you know that we had a really bad experience with White & Co (if you do a search you'll probably find all the original posts on it). Others have had good experiences too but I certainly wouldn't use them again.

mkmurrays

Wouldn't touch Avalon with a bargepole - major issues still outstanding with their service. Also watch out who your company subcontracts to in Canada.

lins and Stef McLachlan

Hi Townie Girl
In the area I live Lund-Conlon are a branch of Whites, they sent out an older guy who was excellent. Lund-Conlon have a good reputation as a company before being acquired by White and placed under their umbrella. They seem to be good on customer service and satisfaction.

He did give me what I thought was a very good tip. Don't over insure as you pay 3% of any value you put down on paper. So that means if you say that your items are worth more than they are, then you will really pay for that priviledge. So we have decided that when it is our turn to go, we will insure the main items which we would need straightaway and which would really cost to replace, for their true value. It is a rarity for a container to be lost, so we would just be protecting againts a possible big outlay. All the Knick Knacks we could always buy over a period of time if we did lose them. Just be aware of the added cost on top of shipping for the insurance, is my advice to anyone thinking about insurance options.
Cheers
Stef

Paul Wildy

But equally I wouldn't under-insure either! In fact my "bad experience" with Whites relates mainly to an insurance claim. Its not highly likely that your entire container will fall of the ship mid-atlantic and sink but it is quite possible that things can get broken. That was our experience with Whites - a huge amount of stuff got broken. We were gutted. It seemed almost every item of furniture that we had of any value got damaged. The main problem was that the people the sent to pack things werent very good and didn't pack stuff properly but even so I don't know how they managed to break as much as they did. And then their insurance (that we paid a lot of extra money for - as you say it costs 3%) wouldn't pay out. The offered us about half and fought with us tooth and nail for 6 months to try to avoid paying what the things were actually insured for. Talk about stressful after just arriving in a new country.

So, good removal companies are not just about how friendly or knowledgeable the guy they send around to do your quote is - its got a lot more to do with how they pack things (the friendly estimator guy won't be doing any packing!) and whether they do sort things out quickly when it all goes wrong to minimise the stress and financial loss for you.

lins and Stef McLachlan

Hi NSpaul
Thanks for your reply, those points are certainly well worth bearing in mind, and the plan will have to then be that I will stand over them when they do the packing..........then if something is broken I can assume that it was outside their control....and make the claim. It is certainly something to be discussed with any company....and not something to take lightly.
Cheers
Stef and Lins

Gail

We used Crown Relocations. They were excellent and they have their own company here also so aren't subcontracting. You can also keep a trace on the ship your container is on (via the internet). We didn't have to go to customs as some people have had to do with their movers - the container just arrived at our house without any hassle.

Nothing was broken, we only insured the large items that would have been expensive to replace.

Paul Wildy

Seriously, you're right. I would keep an eye on them. We had a large antique clock that was wrapped in just a single sheet of bubble wrap and left quite loose in the box. No wonder it got broken!

And don't be tempted to pack anything yourself either - they will mark it on the manifest as "PBO" (packed by owner). When we claimed that was one of the first things they looked for as their "get-out" clause - if we had packed it ourselves they wouldn't pay. Thankfully it was all the boxes they had packed that were damaged though.

They also try to "depreciate" anything that isn't brand new. What's that about - you are going to have to pay full price to replace it even it it was 3 years old.

Then the policy excluded "elecrical or mechanical derangement" which meant that they didn't want to pay for electrical goods or clocks that wouldn't work because they had been damaged internally.

And even things that were badly broken they didn't want to pay out the full value becuase they said the items were not a "total loss". Tell me what use a table is with only 3 legs. It might, by some twisted way of thinking, only be a 25% loss but it isn't much use to you is it!?

Like I say, if I had to do it again I would pay a bit more and use someone else.

mike watson

we moved from kingswinford in 2005 to cambridge, ontario and you can save a bunch if you can get friends to help you load the container, we used kingstown shipping which is east coast uk and i highly recommend the service we got. we had put all our stuff in storage and the truck and 40 ft container arrived and us and 4 friends loaded it in 1.5 hrs( you get 3 ) it took another hour to get my classic american car lifted with forktrucks into it(very scary!) the truck took container to docks and got shipped to montreal then road transported to a bonded warehouse in toronto where we unloaded it into a rented truck, it cost 2400 pounds total, customs also want a list with what you are bringing in and rough value, this can be very general so dont fret about it, where are you moving to in ontario from halesowen?