The gov.uk guidance says:

"If you do not have an address in the UK yet, you can:

• upload a statement from the person you will be living with and proof of their address"

Does the bit about "proof of their address" mean we have to provide one of the relative's utility bills or similar?

Yes.... mortgage/rental agreements, utility bills,deeds etc showing that the place exists and they live there.

I uploaded a letter from my sister (home owner) which said I was welcome to stay there, & she could provide proof of ownership if necessary, and a copy of a hotel booking (provisional and not paid for) for the first few days.
TOR granted almost straight away and with no requests for more info.

Yes, we did this recently for our daughter. I sent her a pdf of a recent utility bill to include in her ToR application. it worked fine.

Note also that she used the ToR approval to make more than 1 shipment. The bulk of her belongings are coming by sea but she shipped her musical instruments via FedEx and the the same ToR approval worked.

Just a quick follow up, about passports and visas on the ToR1.

I'm a Brit and my wife is American. The items I am shipping will be in my name only since I don't need a visa. Does she need her spouse visa in place before I should complete the ToR1 application?

I gather the application asks if you are travelling alone, with family, or with a partner. If I answer yes to partner and her passport does not yet show the entry clearance visa could this cause problems?

Thanks in advance!

Don't see it being an issue as long as the goods are yours and shipped in your name. The TOR is only required when the goods enter the UK anyway, presumably by this point she would have her visa so if necessary I would have thought you could supply it then.

Hi…just wondering if anyone has sent their stuff back to the UK ahead of time, I mean several months before they arrived back? We are planning on selling our house this year but for work reasons, we won’t return until next year (about 8 months). Would be cheaper for us to do it that way rather than pay storage here in Canada for 8 months.

A friend has agreed to let us use her address for the TOR application. The issue I have is the requirement for utility or bank statements. She has provided a screenshot of her bank account but does not particularly want her financial details apart from the statement date and address to be viewable. Can I edit that information, i.e. account balance, account number, etc so it can't be seen?

I can understand her concern. Can she not provide something with a lot less financial detail such as a utility bill, which is what we gave to our daughter to use on her ToR. A council tax bill would also work, they just need something as proof that the person actually resides there

When I did mine, last March, I just supplied a letter from my sister, stating her address, and that they owned the property and I would be staying with them if I hadn't rented a property by the time I arrived. I also did a hotel booking on booking dot com, in the town where I actually wanted to live, and said I'd be staying there for part of the time while house-hunting.
TOR was approved straightaway, no questions asked.

I hope it's okay to tag on to this thread rate than create a new one as my question is TOR1 related, but a bit different:

Later this month we're driving to the UK in a normal car with a roof box with two passengers and a cat (with a pet passport) . So after we've made room for the cat stuff (!) we're only taking clothing for a few months, some personal items, some small electrical items like a laptop, sewing machine and a Switch. Maybe a few books and CDs (but really very few). Perhaps I will take one of my bikes. No furniture or anything like that. Nothing that we should pay tax on. All the bigger items will stay in Italy until we see what happens with our house. Maybe we'll sale the furniture with the house. But we would then still have various things that have personal meaning (photo albums, pictures, various knick knacks, etc) to move. To me it seems likely that we would just go through customs like any other car with people returning to the UK after having been away for the summer in a second home... BUT we are actually transferring residence (we've already done lots of the paperwork). So when should we do a TOR1? Now or wait until if we sale our Italian house and move everything in bulk?
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My understanding is that TOR 1 is intended for unaccompanied belongings that are being shipped, not things you're carrying with you. For example, I didn't include any of the items in the 4 or 5 suitcases I somehow managed to fly over with me......

Thank you. It was the "unaccompanied" bit that helped me find the answer. From what I have now read it's definitely needed if goods are unaccompanied, but if you are going with the goods then it seems it depends. In most circumstances you do a declaration by "conduct" by going through the green nothing to declare route. But there are limits and categories of things that do require a declaration even if you are taking it with you. Here's the personal limits
https://www.gov.uk/bringing-goods-in...-Great-Britain

Seems like one is supposed to declare if the value is over £390!

That looks like a sum that is index linked and rounded to the nearest zero 😀

LOL and how many people these days have mobile phones that cost less than that...