International · from HA5
Moving abroad from Pinner
A European move does not suspend the English conveyancing system. The Pinner house still sits in a chain, keys are still released by solicitors at an hour nobody chooses, and the loft is still full. What the border adds is a document set built on top of all that.
Four routes run often enough to have their own pages. Anywhere else in western Europe is a question we answer straight.
The four routes with their own pages
On these four we hold clearing agents, know the entry formalities and send vehicles often enough to price them honestly. Each page carries the road out, the regions we deliver into, and a document list divided between the rows you obtain and the rows we obtain.
Removals from Pinner to France
Two completions in two legal systems, and only one of them speaks to your solicitor.
- Paris and the Île-de-France
- Normandy and the Cotentin
- Brittany and the Loire
- Charente and the Dordogne
Removals from Pinner to Germany
Registration first, then almost everything else. That sequence is the whole German lesson.
- Berlin and the east
- Hamburg and the north
- Rhine-Ruhr — Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen
- Frankfurt and the Rhine-Main
Removals from Pinner to Netherlands
In Amsterdam the furniture frequently comes in through a window. That is normal there and it has to be booked.
- Amsterdam and the canal belt
- The Hague and Scheveningen
- Rotterdam
- Utrecht and the centre
Removals from Pinner to Switzerland
Everything on the Swiss side is conditional on a document, and the documents have an order.
- Zurich and Zug
- Basel
- Geneva and Lausanne
- Bern and the Mittelland
How a European job runs from HA5
It opens like a move to Eastcote: a survey, a measured volume, a written inventory, and a long look at the loft. What changes is the standing of that inventory, which stops being our working list and becomes a document an official may sit and read. The wording gets attention accordingly.
The vehicle then picks up the M25 and works round to the M20 for the Folkestone shuttle. Beyond Calais the routes separate — north for the Netherlands and Germany, west or south for France, and a long run south-east for Switzerland. The export declaration is raised before the terminal and the import entry lodged against the same list at the far end.
The chain does not care that you are emigrating
This is the part of an international move that gets underplanned. Your buyer has a lender, that lender releases funds in its own time, and the household above you in the chain is paid before you are. None of that changes because your furniture is going to Zurich.
So we treat the UK end exactly as we would on a domestic job, and then we add the one thing an international move allows: collecting ahead of completion and holding the goods here. It costs a little and it removes the scenario where a loaded vehicle is standing at a terminal waiting on a telephone call from Harrow.
Collecting beyond Pinner
A vehicle heading for a Kent crossing passes a good deal of north and west London on the way, so second pickups are straightforward. Where a continental run is already in the diary we will take consignments from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol onto the same vehicle. Moving from one of those rather than from HA5? Say so and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right firm.
Two things we will not put in writing
A transit time before the route, the load and the vehicle arrangement are settled — the honest spread is far too wide for a single figure, so the quotation carries an estimated window for your own consignment. And a duty position, which turns on residence status and documents, so we set out the conditions rather than imply an outcome.
International
Questions about moving abroad
01 Which countries do you run to?
France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland on established road routes, each with its own clearing agent and its own page here. The same vehicles reach Belgium, Austria, Denmark and northern Italy, so ask. Where a destination is not routine for us we will say so rather than treat your move as practice.
02 Do you ship outside Europe?
No. We are a road firm. A container to Sydney or a crate to Vancouver is a different trade with different insurance behind it, and we would rather point you at somebody who does it properly than take the booking and quietly hand it on.
03 Should we collect before completion?
On an international move, very often. A vehicle with a booked crossing cannot wait indefinitely on a solicitor, so collecting a few days early and holding the goods uncouples the two problems. It is the single most useful thing we suggest on these jobs.
04 Dedicated vehicle or a shared load?
A dedicated vehicle carries your goods alone and departs when you say. A shared load travels with other consignments going the same way: less to pay, leaving when the route fills. Fixed dates argue for dedicated; flexibility usually makes sharing better value.
05 Who assembles the paperwork?
We do, from the inventory taken at your Pinner property and working with an agent at the destination. The rows we cannot obtain are the ones attached to you as a person — a tax number, a registration, a residence permit. Each country page separates the two.
06 What about the things that cannot travel?
Fuel, gas cylinders, open paint and garden chemicals are refused on an international load exactly as they are on a local one, and plant material and soil are restricted on top. Clear the shed before the day rather than on it.
Where is it going?
The country, what is happening to the Pinner house, and whether the far end has a confirmed address. Those three decide the vehicle, the route and the file.