PrairieWriter

I've been mulling this question over in my head for a while. When to ship household possessions so that they don't arrive too far beyond our arrival date and also so that we're not in a tremendous rush after receiving the visa?

Do most people wait to ship possessions until they have the visa in hand, or do people stagger it a bit (say, ship the majority of possessions a few weeks after filing for the spousal visa)?

Any consensus on what the best timeline for that might be? We have no reason to suspect there'll be a holdup with the visa when we file.

Decisions, decisions...

(Originally posted in the visa subforum, but wasn't sure if that was the right place...)

Editha

IKEA is your friend.

PrairiePainter

Indeed, we’ve imagined so, especially for our children’s rooms!

PrairieWriter

Ha! I know. Thing is, we have quite a few possessions, including my husband’s art supplies (he’s an artist), and meaningful inherited items that will need to be shipped. So we can’t escape the need for some kind of removal service. 😊

MonsterP

I expect you'll be using a company such as Santa Fe, Asian Tigers, Pickfords, or more economically, a local company. All will have their own choice of partner to deal with in the UK, and you'll probably find that the majority of the charges are on the UK side!

As it's difficult to get insurance unless the removals company does the packing, then they will be able to store it for you. Depending upon where you're shipping from, your transit times will only be around 30 days or so at most, so start preparing in your selection of which company to use. Get quotes, etc.

Hold fire until you have your Vignette and then you can press the green button to arrange a packing date and shipping within a week or so usually. Either that, or have everything pre-packed and put into storage until you request it to be shipped.

Note that you only have 12 months to ship personal effects to the UK after moving, otherwise they will be treated as commercial goods and import duties will apply.

PrairiePainter

Thanks MonsterP,
That's just the kind of timing advice we're needing to think through what items to take, which we'll need immediately, which to buy there, etc.!

MonsterP

No problem. I've not only been in logistics for 30 years, but also used removal companies three times, so I'm used to the process.

Essentially, you will be charged per cbm. Insurance will be quoted usually at 3% of declared value, although, you can try to negotiate this down a little.

If you've got time to have a good clear-out of your stuff, to avoid shipping junk you don't want anymore, then take the advantage. We didn't have time to sort stuff out, so everything was packed. Since moving back, we still have 15 out of the 65 boxes still unopened in the loft!!!

PrairiePainter

Yes, we have time--we just need to get "ruthless" to decide what to jettison and which things have real meaning that we don't want to part with for our new home.
Thanks again!

TiaMaria57

We had the same problem. At first we wanted to keep everything. We got quotes from shippers as well as advice from friends who had also shipped their belongings. Our friends said they hadn’t opened their boxes in 15 years! It was then we decided to be ruthless. We sold all our furniture and just packed our memories into suitcases. Many of our smaller belongings we donated to the local Salvation Army. However, we also did 5 flea markets with items which we knew would sell and we were amazed at how much money we raked in by doing that and it was so much fun too!

Our house sold whilst we were visiting our daughter in Switzerland last September, so we immediately rented an unseen beach front condo before returning to the US. Upon our return we cleared out, packed up, sold the stuff we weren’t taking (all in 5 weeks), and moved 300 miles to the beach for the winter with our suitcases packed ready to fly. We drove our belongings and suitcases to the beach condo in our SUV, having to make several trips there in between clearing the house. Five very hectic weeks but well worth the effort.

Snow Birding over the winter in a furnished condo with all utilities included was actually cheaper than renting an apartment in our small town, where we would still have had to close down utilities, etc. before we departed for England. We fly to England in two weeks time with 18 suitcases and a large box of our paintings and pictures. Winter spent overlooking the ocean has been a great blessing after living in our house for 20 + years. It prevented us from getting emotional about leaving the house, which we had so dearly loved and enjoyed for so long.

Although flying ’home’ with our goods appears to be an expensive method, it will actually work out a lot cheaper than if we’d used a removal/shipping service. The money we will save will go a long way to replacing any items we could not physically take. We’re returning to our furnished house in the UK (which we’ve always kept and never rented out), so we don’t need any more furniture. We simply want to keep our memories of the last 25 years, hence the artwork and the 18 suitcases. Tough decisions simply had to be made! We need to downsize...not upsize in our retirement.

I would recommend this method to anyone who already has most things already over there. We flew all our electronics back with us last autumn, again in several suitcases. Furniture is not that expensive in the UK anyway and there are plenty of on-line selling sites to find bargains.

I’ll keep you all posted after we arrive. We’re just hoping it all goes smoothly!
TM57

scot47

With my family I left Saudi Arabia to go to our home in Europe in 2003. We shipped a container packed full of boxes. 10 years later in our home in Bulgaria we were still wondering what was in some of the unopened boxes. Be ruthless. Keep heirlooms and memories. Get rid of the rest !

scrubbedexpat056

We have had our furniture in storage on and off since 2004. It is the best of what we have bought over the years and we like it all. However, it has cost us more in storage than it is worth. Now we are selling up and moving to France where we expect to buy a property within a year or so and we are selling all our furniture with the house, barring two bedside cabinets we brought back from Hong Kong, and will buy more when we need it. We are also having a massive cull of our books and belongings, also stored for years. I think I'm right in the OP having children, which adds another whole dimension to the problem of what to keep, but I have to say the feeling of shedding stuff at 60 is liberating.
My own experience of having stuff sent back from Hong Kong after 4 years was that we organised for it be stored while we backpacked around India for 2 months and asked for it to be delivered a couple of days after we got back. About 1 hour after we arrived back in our house in London, a bit weirded out, there was a knock on the door and all our stuff was dumped into the main room. I would suggest that when you are near to getting home, keep in close contact with the delivery company to check that what you arranged abroad still stands.

PrairieWriter

Yes—this is exactly what we intend to do! Ruthlessness to the max! I've already started to create an Amazon list of the things we'll need to replace when we get there. We head back this May to look at houses and hopefully make an offer, so we'll likely start gradually sending essentials (kettle, coffee maker, pans, plates etc.) from the Amazon list to my mum or dad's over the following year or so. It's an exciting process, this! Also very very busy...!

PrairieWriter

It is absolutely liberating to shed possessions—I couldn't agree more. Yes, the kids will need to keep their toys, as simply flying the kidlets over with none of their possessions would be extremely difficult for them. They're just little (they'll be nine, three and nine months old when we make the permanent move).

Your suggestion about arranging a specific delivery date is clever. Perhaps we can work with that! Thank you!

PrairiePainter

It will become interesting when we discover how our definitions of “ruthless” vector?! 😉

Lion in Winter

So in general, when moving back to the UK, it is cheaper to replace household furniture such as beds, bookcases, etc than it is to ship and/or store them?

I am very keen to get rid of stuff rather than pay someone else to ship it, but not if replacing crucial things is more expensive. The OH is 6' 4", so a standard English double bed won't work!