The guide
Moving House on Completion Day: The Chain Guide in full
What actually happens between exchange and completion?
Exchange of contracts is the moment the date becomes legally binding. Before it, a completion date is an intention that any party in the chain can move. After it, the date is fixed and moving is a logistics problem rather than a guess.
On completion day your buyer's funds travel to your solicitor, who confirms receipt and authorises the estate agent to release keys. Every link in the chain does the same thing in sequence, which is why the last house in a five-property chain often gets keys mid-afternoon while the first was emptied by nine.
- Exchange: date becomes binding, deposit paid, insurance obligations start
- Completion morning: funds transmitted through the chain, solicitor to solicitor
- Confirmation: your solicitor confirms receipt and instructs the agent
- Key release: agent releases keys — the only moment you can legally unload
When should I book removals in a chain?
Book provisionally four to six weeks before your target completion. A provisional booking holds crew and lorry against a date without committing you; a good removal company will move it once, free, when the chain settles.
Confirm the moment contracts exchange. In London, Fridays and month-ends are heavily booked because that is when chains prefer to complete — a provisional booking is the only reliable way to hold a Friday in July or the last working day before Christmas.
What happens when the chain delays key release?
The honest answer is that the crew waits, loaded, outside the new address. The question is what that costs and who decided the number. Ask for the waiting-time rate in writing before you book — an hourly figure per crew, applied after an agreed free window.
If keys are not released at all that day, a loaded lorry has to be secured overnight in a depot and the crew returns in the morning. That fee should also be written down. A company that will not state either figure in advance is planning to name one on the day you have no alternatives.
- Free waiting window: typically the first hour after the agreed arrival
- Waiting-time rate: hourly, per crew, stated in the quote
- Overnight secured van: fixed fee plus a next-morning restart slot
- Partial unload: never permitted before keys are legally released
Who coordinates the solicitor, the agent and the remover?
You do — but the job is small if the information flows early. Give your remover the estate agent's branch number and your solicitor's completion contact a week before. Give your solicitor the remover's number too, so a delay reaches the crew as a phone call rather than a rumour.
On the morning itself, one person in your household should own the phone. Two people chasing the same agent produces contradictions; one person with a written timeline produces decisions.
A completion-day timeline that works in London
This is the shape of a well-run London completion, assuming a mid-chain position and a 7.5-tonne lorry with a suspended bay outside both addresses.
- 07:30 — Crew arrives, walk-through, floor and doorframe protection down
- 08:00 — Packing finished items, dismantling beds and wardrobes
- 09:30 — Loading begins, heavy and boxed items first, fragiles last on
- 11:30 — House empty, meter readings photographed, final sweep
- 12:00 — Load secured, crew stands by; you chase the solicitor for confirmation
- 13:30 — Keys released, drive to the new address, second bay in place
- 14:00 — Unload by room label, furniture rebuilt in the rooms you nominate
- 17:30 — Beds made up if booked, boxes stacked where you want them, sign-off
What to ask any remover about delay terms
Five questions separate a firm that has run a thousand chains from one that has not. Ask them on the phone and listen for how quickly the numbers come back.
- What is your waiting-time rate and when does it start?
- What happens if keys are not released today at all?
- Is my quote fixed after the video survey, or re-priced on the day?
- Are you insured for goods in transit and for storage overnight?
- Who is my contact on the day, and will the crew leader have my solicitor's number?
The printable completion-day card
Keep one page on the fridge and one in the car: your solicitor's direct line, the agent's branch, the crew leader's mobile, both addresses with postcodes, the bay suspension reference, the meter locations and the first-night box contents. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.