LouisLouisLouis

Hello all!

My wife and I plan to move back to the UK in July/August from the Netherlands after 4 great years. I am almost ready to apply for the TOR1 application and wanted to ask your opinions on a couple of points.



Firstly, most people completing this form seem to be getting a moving company to transport the goods, but I would like to do it myself. Is this an issue? I can borrow a friend’s van (or use a rental vehicle).
We do not have a huge number of bulky personal belongings (no furniture etc) so it should not be too tricky. Will it be OK to turn up at customs with a van and our personal items if we have the TOR1 confirmation code?



Secondly I have quite a number of tools. On the Gov website - TOR1 information page, under the eligible goods section it states:

“portable instruments of the applied or liberal arts required by you for your trade or profession”

I work as a building conservator. I conserve/ repair/ restore the timber elements of historic buildings. Having looked at the definition of applied art I believe I come under this. What do you think?



Finally, I have seen that a number of people have added values to their TOR1 personal items list however the Gov.uk website does not ask for this. What is the reason for adding these values?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thanks

Louis

dougal03

Hi Louis, I used a Removal company for my few belongings when I returned to UK from Spain in March this year.Apart from the Tori document I had to provide a lot of details but not sure now how much was included in that.I had to provide a written paper from the townhall in my town to say that my residence documents had been cancelled.Also the address which I was going to & strangely,my last electricity bill.I had sold my home in Spain & was in the process of buying one here & included the solicitor´s acceptance quote .I can´t remember all the stuff as, the removal man got new instructions,it seems,every few days,one of which was that I had to have a list of all the contents printed on the top & side of each carton & an inventory given to the Removal man to present at British Customs.Things may have changed in the last couple of months but when he got to Britain,on the south coast the Customs had no knowledge of all this new paperwork & so all the drivers coming in from the EU countries were held up.And there was a fee to be paid as "Britain no longer has a trade agreement" with the EU he was told.M y fee was 150 pounds sterling although the removal man said he had been charged various amounts on the other 3 occasions he had had previous trips since Brexit.Unfortunately the British Govn does not make things clear on their website &,as in my case,the Consulate just refer you to that if you ask them.I could only get a flight back to the north of England not directly into Scotland.The website stated that moving home allowed you to travel(at that time) but I had no written authority to say this & was concerned that I would be stopped by some official who was unaware of this detail.Hope this is of some help,Louis,maybe someone else can assist you regarding their experience of doing your own removal.

getoutofbritainquick

We have just completed out TOR and getting ready to send it in. Firstly you are only required to show a total valuation for HM Customs nit an itemized value list. From what I have gathered I think they are looking at high value items, I sure they will scrutinise a TOR where someone puts the value in the hundreds of thousand of $$ more than 10's of thousands. You also need the total value for insurance purposes.

From what I understand and are certainly not an expert, tools of your professional trade are not exempt from duty and you have to pay tax on the value.

dougal03

Maybe things have changed as Sparky has a different account of what is needed,although both Louis & myself were/is concerned about coming from an EU country whereas Sparky looks like he is not.I did not have anything of great value & I think that having to describe the contents had to do more with items that were forbidden,like tobacco,alcohol & food.I wanted to include some jars of the lovely local Spanish honey but thought it best not to do so just in case.However I did chuck in the last few teabags I had left as my Spanish buyer only drank coffee & tea is mostly drunk by Spanish when pregnant !! I did not have to state the value,perhaps that is covered by a legally licensed Removal Company You will get back a response by e-mail to say that you have approval granted for your shipment,in my case right before I left . But my belongings were going into storage until I had completed on the UK property purchase so if there had been any further delay in receiving that,it wouldn´t have been too much of a problem.

LouisLouisLouis

Thanks very much for commenting Dougal & Sparky. Interesting points.

Can anyone else chime i with answers to the above questions?

Thanks

Louis

LouisLouisLouis

Just to update this thread, I applied for TOR last week and have been given approval today. That is a turnaround of 5 days (including a weekend!). Very quick!
They also seemed to agree that my tools were "portable instruments of the applied or liberal arts required by you for your trade or profession" as I explained my work in a covering letter and nothing was asked about them.
A good result.

Thanks

Louis

getoutofbritainquick

I sent our TOR in this week. It will be interesting to see what the turnaround time is HM Customs indicated it was currently 14 days when I called them. We cannot get the cats health certificate until 10 days before we travel. Our flights are booked for 18th July. We have just spent a small fortune on pre flight COVID tests and UK day 2 and Day 8. It's a shame the vaccine roll out in Canada which is still on the UK amber list has not been as rapid as we would have liked.