What it actually costs to move within London

Almost every moving budget is wrong in the same direction. People price the van and forget everything either side of it.

The van is usually the smallest line in the total. What follows is the shape of a London move, roughly in the order the money leaves.

The deposit gap

If you are renting, this is the largest number and the one that surprises people, because for a few weeks you are holding two deposits at once.

Deposits are capped at five weeks' rent for annual rents under £50,000. Your old deposit is not returned until after the check-out inspection, which realistically means two to four weeks after you leave — and the new one is due before you get the keys. On a £2,000-a-month flat that is roughly £2,300 tied up twice, with no overlap discount for the fact that you are the same person.

Overlapping rent

Two or three days of overlap is the sensible minimum: it lets you move without a same-day handover, and it means a delayed van is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.

A week of overlap is better and costs a week of rent. If you are moving between flats where one has stairs and no lift, buy the week.

Removals

For a London move, the honest range is wide, because it depends on three things nobody asks about at the quoting stage: floors without a lift, parking distance from the door, and whether you have packed properly.

A two-person crew and a Luton van for a one-bed flat is a different job on a ground floor with a driveway than on a third floor with a shared entrance and a permit bay forty metres away. The second one takes twice as long, and hourly-rate crews charge for it.

The way to control this is to get more than one quote and to be specific about the awkward parts, because a firm that has priced the stairs in will not add them on the day. Comparing several quotes at once is the fastest way to see the spread, and our directory of London removal firms lists which are British Association of Removers members, borough by borough.

Booking early matters more than haggling. End of month, Fridays and the last week of August are when demand peaks; the same job on a Tuesday mid-month is a different price.

Packing materials

The line people genuinely forget. A two-bed flat needs roughly 25 large boxes, 40 medium, a few wardrobe boxes, five rolls of tape and a couple of kilos of packing paper — plus bubble wrap, markers and something to protect the floors.

Bought properly this is not expensive, but bought in a panic on the Saturday morning from a corner shop it is. Our packing supplies page has a calculator for how many boxes each size of home needs, and a checklist of the things that get bought at the last minute.

The single most common false economy is free supermarket boxes. They are free because they are not designed to be stacked or carried loaded — the bases fail, and a base failing over a tiled floor with your plates in it costs more than the boxes would have.

Storage, if the chain moves

If you are buying, the gap between completion dates is not fully under your control, and a chain that slips by a week leaves your belongings somewhere. Even renters hit this when a tenancy end and start don't line up.

A month of self-storage plus a second part-load van is the usual cost, and it is worth knowing the number before you need it rather than after. Self-storage near your new area is easy to arrange at a week's notice; what is not easy is arranging a second van in peak season.

Setting up the new place

Small individually, meaningful together:

• Broadband. Installation lead times in London run to two or three weeks and longer if the property needs an engineer visit. Order it before you move, not after — and check what is actually available at the new address, because it varies street by street. Availability at a specific postcode is worth checking before you sign anything, not after.
• Energy. Take meter readings at both properties on the day, photograph them, and switch rather than defaulting onto the incoming supplier's standard tariff, which is where you end up if you do nothing. Comparing tariffs takes ten minutes and is the highest-return ten minutes of the whole move.
• Contents insurance. Most policies do not cover belongings in transit, and a mover's goods-in-transit cover usually carries a per-item limit well below the value of a laptop or a bike. Check what your cover actually includes before moving day rather than after something breaks.
• Council tax. Register immediately. Backdated bills are the least pleasant post-move post.

The two that catch people out

Parking suspensions. Many London boroughs require a suspended bay or a dispensation for a removal van, applied for days in advance, at a cost per day. Miss it and the crew parks further away and charges for the walk, or you take a ticket.

Rules, notice periods and prices differ by borough, so check the specific council rather than assuming. A suspension in Islington is a different process, notice period and price from one in Bromley or Havering — and the boroughs with the least off-street parking are the ones where skipping it costs you most.

Check-out deductions. Professional cleaning, scuffed hallways, picture hooks, a garden that has grown. The deposit protection schemes exist and do work, but the process takes weeks and you need photographic evidence from the day you moved in. If you have that, you will usually win. If you do not, you will usually lose.

Roughly what to hold back

For a one-bed London flat, allowing for the deposit gap, a few days' overlapping rent, removals, materials and setup, most people need meaningfully more available cash than they expect — and the deposit gap is the majority of it.

The number that matters is not the total. It is how much needs to be available at once, in the fortnight where both deposits are out and the van has been paid.

Before you commit to the area

None of the above is a reason to move somewhere or not. But it is worth knowing that the cost of getting it wrong is high enough to justify an evening of research first.

Crime, transport, schools and green space for every London borough are on the borough pages, each figure ranked against the other 32 — and the map shows all 33 boroughs and 283 postcode districts.

Check the area before you book the van

One 1-10 score for any London postcode, down to the street rather than the borough.

Open app (Beta)