International · from RM
Moving abroad from Romford
The European routes run on the same inventory as a local job with a customs file built on top. What carries over from the rest of this site is the capacity question, because relief on a household move attaches to a person changing residence — not to goods in the abstract.
Four routes run often enough to warrant their own pages. Anywhere else in western Europe is an enquiry we answer honestly.
The four routes we run
On these four we hold agents, know the entry formalities and send vehicles often enough to price them properly. Each page carries the road route, the regions we deliver into, and a document list divided between the rows you obtain and the rows we obtain.
Removals from Romford to France
A retirement to the west and a second home in Normandy are the two patterns we see most from this borough.
- Normandy and the Cotentin
- Brittany and the Loire
- Paris and the Île-de-France
- Charente and the Dordogne
Removals from Romford to Spain
Retirements to the Costas dominate from this borough, and a good many of them are downsizes as well as relocations.
- Madrid and the centre
- Catalonia and Barcelona
- Valencia, Alicante and Murcia
- Andalucía and the Costa del Sol
Removals from Romford to Italy
Fewer Havering households take this route than France or Spain, and those that do are usually buying something to restore.
- Milan, the lakes and Lombardy
- Piedmont and Turin
- Tuscany
- Umbria and Le Marche
Removals from Romford to Portugal
The Algarve takes most of the volume from this borough, and most of those are retirements.
- Lisbon and Cascais
- The Silver Coast
- The Algarve
- Porto and the north
How a European job runs from here
It opens like a move to Collier Row: a survey, a measured volume, a written inventory. The shift is in the standing of that inventory: it stops being our working list and becomes something a border official will sit and read, which is why the wording gets attention. "Twelve cartons, books" and "boxes" are not the same declaration.
The vehicle leaves the borough for the M25, crosses at Dartford and runs round to the M20 for the Folkestone shuttle. From Calais the routes separate: east and south for Italy, straight down for Spain and Portugal, anywhere at all for France. The export declaration is raised before the terminal and the import entry lodged at the far end against the same list.
Capacity, at a border
The thread running through this whole site has a sharper edge on an international job. Relief on a household move exists so that a person changing residence is not taxed on their own possessions, and it is written in exactly those terms. Where somebody is acting for an estate, or moving furnishings they own but have not lived with, the basis is different. We establish which applies before the vehicle is loaded rather than at a border.
Collecting beyond Havering
A vehicle heading for a Kent crossing passes much of east London and south Essex on the way, so second pickups are straightforward. Where a run to the continent is already in the diary we will take on consignments from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol too. Moving from one of those rather than from Romford? Say so, and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right firm for it.
Two things we will not put in writing
A transit time before the route, the load and the vehicle arrangement are known — the truthful spread is far too wide for one figure, so the quote carries an estimated window for your own consignment instead. And a duty position, which turns on residence status and documents, so we set out the conditions rather than imply an outcome.
International
Questions about moving abroad
- Which countries do you run to?
- France, Spain, Italy and Portugal on established road routes, each with its own clearing agent and its own page here. The same vehicles reach Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, so ask. Where a destination is not routine for us we say so rather than treat your move as practice.
- We are exporting goods from an estate rather than moving ourselves. Is that different?
- Materially, and it is worth getting right before anything is loaded. Transfer of residence relief applies to a person's own household effects accompanying their own change of residence. Inherited goods being sent abroad sit on a different basis, and we will not describe them as something they are not on a declaration. Tell us the position and we will establish what the file genuinely needs.
- How does the Dartford Crossing affect a European job?
- It sets the departure hour rather than the price. Everything leaving an RM postcode for the Channel goes through it or a long way round, and choosing the right hour is most of the planning on that first leg.
- Dedicated vehicle or a shared load?
- Dedicated carries your goods alone and departs when you say. Shared travels with other consignments going the same way: cheaper, leaving when the route fills. Immovable dates argue for dedicated; flexibility usually makes sharing better value.
- Who assembles the paperwork?
- We do, from the inventory made at the property and with an agent at the destination. The rows we cannot obtain are the ones attached to you as a person — a tax number, a residence registration, a consular certificate. Each country page separates the two.
- Can goods be held here first?
- Frequently. Overseas completions run late, and estates take as long as they take. Collect on the date that is certain, hold the goods listed, and build the export file from that list when the far end is real.
Where is it going?
Both addresses, a rough volume, the capacity you are acting in, and whether the far end has a date. We will come back with the route, the document list and a written quote.