In the middle · 05
When the dates do not line up in Wimbledon
This is not really a separate service so much as the most common shape a Wimbledon move actually takes. You have to be out of one place on a date that is fixed, and into another on a date that is not. Rather than trying to force those together, we plan the gap deliberately.
Rental breaks, broken chains, renovations, overseas completions and probate all produce the same problem and the same answer.
How the gap is handled
Plan for it even if you think it will not happen
The cheapest version of this arrangement is the one decided at survey. The expensive version is the one arranged in a panic on the Thursday before completion, when nobody has an inventory, nothing is packed for storage rather than for moving, and the crew has to be found at short notice.
Mentioning at survey that your chain looks fragile costs you nothing and does not commit you to anything. It just means the plan exists if you need it.
What to keep out of store
This is the part people get wrong. If your things are going away for a while, you need a genuine living kit with you: clothes for the season and the one after it, work equipment, chargers, documents, medication, children's essentials and whatever makes a rented room tolerable.
We go through this before loading and write it down, because retrieving one box from a sealed container is an arrangement, and doing it three times is an expensive way to find your winter coat.
Probate, renovation and the longer holds
Not every gap is a broken chain. Clearing a family house after a death frequently means holding everything while decisions get made, and there is no sensible timetable for that. Renovations run on. Overseas purchases stall.
The arrangement is the same in each case: collect once, list it properly, seal it, and hold it until someone is ready. What changes is how much thought goes into what stays accessible.
Going abroad with a gap in the middle
If the far end of your move is in France, Spain, Italy or Portugal, holding the goods here first is usually the right order. Overseas completions slip more than domestic ones, and an export file built against an inventory written in your Wimbledon house is more accurate than one assembled later.
See the moving abroad pages for how the customs side attaches to the same inventory.
Gap between contracts
Questions about gap between contracts
01 How long can you hold my things?
For as long as the gap needs. The terms, including any notice for redelivery, are in the booking contract in writing so there is no ambiguity about it.
02 What if I do not know my second date at all yet?
That is the normal case and it is fine. The collection is booked; the redelivery is booked later, once the date is real. You are not asked to commit to a return date you cannot know.
03 Can I add things to storage later?
Yes — a later collection can be added, listed and sealed like the first. It goes on the same inventory so everything stays in one record.
04 Can the redelivery go to a different address from the one we planned?
Yes. You name the delivery address when you book the redelivery, not at collection. Plenty of people end up somewhere other than the house that fell through.
05 Is it cheaper to put things in self storage instead?
Sometimes on paper, rarely in practice once you count the extra handling: loading, unloading into a unit, then loading again. Your quote sets out the containerised arrangement clearly enough for you to compare properly.
Tell us what is moving
Describe the property, where it is going, and whether anything needs holding in between. We read it, ask what is missing, and come back with a written quote.