The guide
When to Start Packing for a Move: A London Week-by-Week Timeline in full
The six-week countdown
A London move rarely gets a fixed date early. Completion moves, tenancy ends shift by a few days and lift bookings get refused. The countdown below is written so that a date slipping by a week costs you nothing — the early weeks are all things you can live without.
- Six weeks out — loft, garage, shed, storage unit and anything seasonal
- Five weeks — books, records, framed art and display china
- Four weeks — spare rooms, home office paperwork, hobby kit
- Three weeks — the bulk of the wardrobes, out-of-season clothing
- Two weeks — living room, dining room, all but everyday crockery
- Final week — kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom and the essentials box last
Why lofts and storage come first
Loft and garage contents are the least urgent to have unpacked and the most likely to change the size of the van. Doing them first tells you honestly how big the move is while there is still time to book a bigger vehicle or a clearance.
It is also the only part of the job you can do calmly. Every other room gets packed under time pressure, so front-load the one that does not have to be.
What must not be packed early
There is a short list of things that stay out until the last night, and getting them wrong is what makes the final evening miserable.
- Bedding and towels for every person in the household
- Chargers, laptops, routers and the box of cables you will otherwise buy twice
- Medication, prescriptions and anything needed daily
- Kettle, mugs, tea, a pan and cutlery for the number of people moving
- Documents — passports, tenancy papers, completion pack, insurance
Completion days and tenancy ends change the plan
A sale completion in London is not a date, it is a phone call — keys usually release between midday and 3pm, and the packing has to be finished before it happens because the lorry loads while you wait.
A tenancy end is the opposite problem: the checkout inventory is booked for a fixed hour and the flat has to be empty and clean by then. That pulls the whole timeline forward by a day and adds an end-of-tenancy clean into the same week.
Where a paid pack fits into a slipping schedule
Most people call us in the final ten days, when three weeks of good intentions have produced one packed bookcase. A full pack of a two-bed takes two packers five to six hours, which replaces roughly twenty evenings.
If the timeline has only partly slipped, a fragile-only pack from £140 or a kitchen-only pack from £120 covers the two rooms that actually take skill, and you keep the rest.
