HOW TO HAVE A STRESS FREE HOUSE MOVE

Moving house is up there as one of the most stressful experiences you will ever have in your life. I am a crazed list maker and love organising things so I was excited to label a new notebook from my notebook shelf (yes, I do have one of those) my new house book. I got straight down to action making notes, timelines, chapters as different rooms from the house etc etc etc…

During my whole moving journey I made some errors but also some amazing tricks that I am here to share with you that will definitely make your house move a bit less stressful.

CHECK LIST

Having a checklist for everything is imperative. It can help you know what is going on, what has already happened and what is about to happen during your most stressful moments. Make a list of everyone you need to pay, have a column for the date you need to pay it and tick it when you have. Also have a list of companies that you need to tell you change of address.

GET A DECENT MORTGAGE ADVISOR AND SOLICITOR

Without my mortgage advisor and solicitor I would still be at square one. Both of these guys helped guide me along the way answering my emails at ridiculous times of the day when I was freaking out that I had done something wrong or not done something that I should. You need a nice mortgage advisor and solicitor that you don’t have to talk to a receptionist every time you call and take a day to get back to you. The whole reason moving can take a ridiculous amount of time can often be because of a slow solicitor that takes a day to tackle one simple question and another factor is a tricky mortgage lender. We managed to complete our move in a record six weeks from offer on our property to date of exchange and I credit this down to these two men and also mine and Liam’s speediness at filling out forms.

GET EARLY ACCESS

This was something I didn’t realise was possible but if you are buying an empty property (ours was a previous buy-to-let) you can ask for temporary access between exchange and completion. All you need to do is ask your solicitor to ask your future properties solicitor (ugh, how much easier would the whole process be if we could just send a quick DM on social to the seller haha) if they will grant you access. If they say yes you then sign a document that says things like, “you can only go in to decorate, do works on the property or clean”, “that you will not move in”, “that you can not stay the night” etc. We were allowed to keep the keys until the night before completing.

CLEANERS

(*we were gifted the cleaning by Fantastic Services) By getting early access we were able to send in a cleaner the day before we moved in. This was an absolute God Send!! I am quite particular about the scent of a house. I found that our house had those awful smelling plug in scent sprayers so I immediately threw them out. Fantastic Services kindly sent me a cleaner and carpet cleaners for a few hours and I could not recommend them more. You may have spotted my stories last week where I gave you a little behind the scenes of them working. The female cleaner actually scratched old paint off the light switches!!!!!!! I mean who on earth does this? I thanked her profusely and she replied,”well, of course”. Just standard practice for her…amazing. We even had our carpets cleaned which felt amazing as we knew that we would be having a fresh start smelling only of us not the previous tenants. I have been given a £10 off code for all my readers, click through to here and the offer code is itsmegan . Let me know if you use them…they do everything, they will even buy your Christmas tree if you like.

DECORATING

Not everyone has the same opinion when it comes to paint colours. This was definitely apparent in our house. Our dining room, lime green. Our kitchen, poop brown. Our bedroom, dark purple. I couldn’t hold back but to get in there and white wash the place. It is always easier to paint in an empty, furniture free house so if you can get in early I would strongly recommend you do this too.

Have you got any extra stress free tips for those moving house? I actually think I could write an essay on my moving process but I will leave it at the above for now 😉