Storage between completion dates: the London gap guide in Mill Hill NW7

Overnight on the van versus into storage

A one-night gap is a logistics detail: the load stays strapped in the lorry in a secure yard and comes off the next morning. It carries an overnight-van fee rather than a storage contract, and nothing is double-handled.

Once the gap runs past two nights, keeping a lorry off the road stops making sense for anyone. Containerised storage is cheaper per day, the goods are sealed in wooden containers rather than sitting in a vehicle, and the crew that loaded them is the crew that delivers them.

What container storage costs and how it works

Your belongings are loaded into wooden containers at your old address, sealed, and stored in a racked warehouse. Weekly rates start around £22 per container, and a typical three-bed London house uses three to five.

There is no tie-in on a move-gap booking: you pay by the week and stop when the keys land. Access is by appointment rather than self-storage walk-in, which is the trade-off for a lower rate and a professional load.

• ●Two-bed flat: roughly two containers
• ●Three-bed house: roughly three to four containers
• ●Four-bed house: roughly five, sometimes six with a garage
• ●Add one container for a loft you have not emptied

Packing for a move that happens twice

The single most useful thing you can do is pack a two-week 'first night and after' set that never goes into storage: documents, chargers, medication, school uniforms, work kit, kettle, bedding, tools.

Label everything by destination room rather than by origin room. When goods come out of storage weeks later, the crew is placing boxes in a house they have never been in, and 'Kitchen — mugs' beats 'Old back room' every time.

Insurance while goods are stored

Goods-in-transit cover applies while items are being moved. Storage cover is a separate line, usually based on the declared replacement value of everything in the containers, and it is worth ten minutes of your time to declare that figure properly.

Ask for both in writing, with the excess stated. Any firm that cannot produce a certificate for both should not be holding your possessions in a warehouse you have never seen.

When the gap collapses at the last minute

Chains move. If your purchase suddenly completes on the same day after all, we cancel the storage leg and revert to a straight move — the storage weeks are not charged if the containers never leave the yard.

If the gap extends instead, the containers simply stay another week. Neither direction should trigger a renegotiation of the quote, and that should be written into it before you book.