Practical Guide to Moving House Etiquettes

Moving home is certainly a challenging and time-consuming task and demands immense patience and organisation skills. Managing your time and making a priority list makes things easy as you can easily navigate through each important step. You can learn about the etiquettes of moving your house in this post and make your check list accordingly to keep the process as smooth as possible.

House Moving Etiquettes

PART-1: Etiquettes to Move Out of Your Old House

Clean the Property: You often get a checklist of things to be cleaned when you evacuate a rental property. Often this is an extensive task and requires professional handling so you can call a cleaning company for this purpose. Take out rubbish, air out the rooms, and empty all the bins. Clean carpets and windows if required.

Pick All Items: It’s a good practice to leave nothing of your old furniture or items for the new tenants even if you want to. Its just like when you move into a new house. Do you find anything extra there? No, right? Then do the same for the new homeowners as well so they don’t have to move leftovers themselves. Leaving behind paint or spare tiles however, is acceptable.

Leave all Lights & Fixtures: Again, consider moving into your new house and finding no light or plugs to use. It would be hectic obviously. Therefore, consider the same for the new house owners and leave behind lights and fixtures including:

• Kitchen counters and cupboards
• Curtain rails and curtain poles
• TV aerials and satellite dishes
• Light fittings and switches
• Bathroom suites
• Bed and sofas
• Lampshades
• Wardrobes
• Radiators
• Carpets
• Boiler
• Plugs

Leave door keys on each of the door locks of the interior rooms of your house.

Inform the Neighbours: Although your neighbours could already know about you moving out of the house, it’s better to inform them yourself as well. You can let them know about important information regarding new homeowners such as, is it a single person, a couple or a family, if they have pets, etc. Other people and organisations you need to inform include:

• TV licencing services (To share your new location to send future TV licence bills)
• Bank, pension provider, building society, and companies where you have investments or loans.
• DVLA – to renew licence and vehicle registration
• Local council – for council tax and voting registration
• Magazine subscriptions
• Credit card companies
• Broadband providers
• Your kids’ school
• Your employers
• HMRC

Notice to Landlord: If your old house is a rental property then give enough notice period to landlord so they have ample time to find new occupants and resolve any issues between yourself and them. A 1-month notice period is sufficient for this purpose.  

Develop Good Relations With New Owners Or Renters: When selling or renting your own property, it is best to build good relations with the new buyers or occupants by keeping in touch, being helpful, and resolving any persisting issues. Give them warm greetings by leaving a small welcome gift plus list of nearby hot spots to increase their know-how of the area. Other important details you can share include:

• List of service providers’ contacts, such as top local takeaways, gardening, waste removals, maintenance, etc.
• Bin pick-up days
• Parking Information
• Access or security codes
• Neighbourhood propriety
• Utility meters navigation information

Hand Over Keys & Property Timely: Hand over the keys to the new owners or tenants on-time as some agents can also charge late fee.

Part 2: Etiquettes for Moving In

Now when you’ve moved to the new house, there are also some etiquettes to follow:

Introduce Yourself To New Neighbours: Reach out to your new neighbours and introduce yourself. It is better if you can take small gifts or home-made eateries to warm up your relations and can also invite them to visit your house. This exercise is crucial after moving in to become a part of the new community.

Don’t Change the Locks Without Consent: It is important to know that you can’t change or add locks without your landlord’s approval. If you get permission then provide spare keys or a copy of all new keys before doing anything else. This way you can avoid getting locked out of your own property and help building a lasting relationship with your landlord, which is important in case you need future help.

Check-out the House: Before signing paperwork, take a comprehensive survey of your new house to ensure that nothing has been changed or damaged during the tenancy contract. If you find damages upon surveying then you can ask your landlord to get them repaired.