Moving Into a New Build: What Happens if Your Completion Date Is Delayed?
You’ve sold your house. The removals are booked. You’ve started packing. You’re mentally arranging the furniture in your shiny new kitchen.
Then the call comes.
Your new build isn’t going to be ready on time.
Unfortunately, delays are one of the realities of buying a new-build property. Build schedules change, snagging can uncover problems, paperwork can hold things up and the completion date you’ve been working towards can suddenly move.
It’s frustrating at the best of times. But if you’ve also sold your current home and need to be out by a certain date, it leaves you with one pretty big question:
What happens to everything you own?
The good news is that a delayed completion date doesn’t necessarily need to derail your entire move.
First: don’t panic and don’t cancel everything
As soon as you know your completion date might change, speak to the people involved in your move, that includes your solicitor, developer and removals company. The earlier we know there could be a problem, the more options we have to work around it, if your move is booked with Lyons Removals, give us a call. Depending on availability and what’s happening with your sale, we can look at changing your moving date or putting temporary storage in place.
What you don’t want to do is leave it until the morning of the move to tell everyone the keys aren’t ready.
What if you have to leave your current house before the new one is ready?
This is where temporary storage can make life considerably easier.
Moving house doesn't always happen neatly from:
Old house → new house.
Sometimes it looks more like:
Old house → storage → temporary accommodation → new house.
If your current property has completed and you need to hand over the keys, your belongings can be collected as planned and moved into secure storage instead.
You can then stay with family, move into temporary accommodation or make whatever arrangements work for you without also having to find somewhere for an entire houseful of furniture. Once your new home is ready, we arrange the next part of the move and bring everything back out of storage to your new address.
You don't have to move everything twice yourself
This is something people unfortunately don't always realise. Temporary storage doesn't have to mean hiring a van, moving everything into a self-storage unit, unloading it yourself and then repeating the entire process when you finally get your keys.
With Lyons, we can manage the process for you.
We can collect your belongings from your existing home, move them into our storage facility and then deliver them to your new property when you're ready. That means one company can handle the removals and the gap between properties and when you're already juggling solicitors, developers, mortgage paperwork, addresses and moving dates, having one less thing to coordinate makes a big difference.
Be careful with dates you haven't got in writing
When you're desperate to get into your new home, it's very easy to hear "we're hoping for the 16th" and immediately start rearranging your life around the 16th.
Try not to. Until your completion date is properly confirmed, keep some flexibility in your plans where you can.
Speak to your removals company about what happens if the date changes and understand any terms around postponements or changes to your booking.
It's much easier to make a Plan B before you need one.
Keep the things you'll need with you
If some or all of your belongings are going into temporary storage, think carefully about what you might need while you're between properties.
Keep essentials separate, such as:
Important documents
Medication
Chargers and electronics
Enough clothing for the expected period
Children's essentials
Work equipment
Toiletries
Valuables you prefer to keep with you
Anything you'll need immediately when you get the keys
We would always recommend allowing for the possibility that the delay lasts slightly longer than originally expected, you don't want the school shoes you suddenly need on Monday morning packed somewhere amongst an entire houseful of belongings.
Tell your removals company you're buying a new build
Even if everything currently appears to be running to schedule, tell us.
New-build moves can have their own considerations, there may be unfinished roads, restricted vehicle access, multiple properties completing around the same time, developer rules, limited parking or site access requirements. The more information we have beforehand, the better we can plan the move, that's one of the reasons we put so much emphasis on planning before moving day.
A delayed new build is frustrating but Your belongings don't need to become another problem on your list...
You can't control every part of a house move, completion dates change, building work overruns, chains cause delays, plans that looked certain three weeks ago suddenly aren't.
What you can do is have a backup plan.
Lyons Removals & Storage can help with the whole process, from moving you out of your current property to securely storing your belongings and delivering them to your new home once you've finally got those keys.
So if you're buying a new build in Warrington, Cheshire or the surrounding areas and you're worried about dates not lining up, talk to us before moving day and we'll help you work out the most sensible way to handle it.
Moving. Storage. Or the awkward bit in between.
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