Backup plans: How to create yours before moving house

If all of the studies are to be believed, moving house is hardly stress-free. In fact, it has almost officially been classed as one of the most stressful periods of your life.

To make matters worse, there are no guarantees. Even if you have managed to exchange contracts, things can still go wrong and mean that the date you are moving changes.

Naturally, this causes a whole host of problems. Today's guide will now take a look at some of the key areas you need to prepare for if your house move does unexpectedly stall.

A safe place for your belongings

First and foremost, you'll need somewhere to house your belongings. If you are lucky, your existing tenancy may have a few days remaining, and this provides an easy solution.

Not everyone is going to be quite as lucky, though. There have been occasions where people have been left temporarily without anywhere to store belongings, and this is where something like self storage from Safestore can come to your aid. This will allow you to temporarily store your belongings, ready for when you do make your move. Try and find out where your local storage option is so you can fine-tune your backup plan.

A roof for yourself

Following on from the above, another obvious issue is where you are going to temporarily live. Some of you might have local relatives, but again not everyone is so lucky. This is where hotels enter the equation, or maybe even a short-term rental from somewhere like Airbnb

Regardless, build it into your backup plan, just in case it does go wrong.

Removal companies: building in contingencies

We've already spoken about your belongings, but you will also need to make arrangements for the people who will be actually moving these. As anyone who has dealt with removal firms will testify, they aren't always easy. Jobs can constantly overrun, and this means that reliability is always an issue.

It means that you have to be shrewd when choosing your initial moving date. Choose a Friday, and you might be asking for trouble. This is because a lot might not work over the weekend, meaning that if things are delayed by the odd day you are left with a big problem on how to transfer your belongings.

Ensuring your letters get to you in good time

Out of all of the points we have mulled over so far, one might argue that this is one of the least important tasks.

Nevertheless, making sure that your letters are all aligned is something that can really boost your plight. Having told all of the companies that you receive correspondence from that you are moving house, you can find that you are sat in your existing home with all of your important mail being directed to your future one!

The easiest way to mitigate this risk is to organize a redirect. This means that the mail service will automatically deal with your change in address, and it also means that you can make changes much more quickly to reflect your living arrangements.