Hands that travel
A crew that travels, the whole way
France, Spain, Italy and Portugal are all road routes, which means the crew that packs and loads your flat in London is the crew that carries it off the van at the far end. The one leg we do not own is the crossing — a booked slot on a tunnel or ferry operator — and we would rather say that plainly than imply we control the timetable.
On these four routes almost everything is the part we control, which is why the crew is the whole subject of this page.
What our crew does before it leaves
What we do not own, exactly
The crossing and the paperwork. The tunnel or ferry slot is booked with an operator whose timetable we do not control, and the customs entry is filed by an agent against declarations that are legally yours. Everything else on these four routes — the packing, the loading, the drive, the unload — is our own crew.
We say this on every overseas page on this site. A great many removals websites imply full control of a border crossing, and the result is people who blame their mover for a queue at Calais or a document nobody told them to sign.
Sole-use or shared
Sole-use means the vehicle carries your goods only — loaded once in London and unloaded once at destination, with nothing shifted in between. A shared load is consolidated with another household going the same way, which costs less and involves more handling at both ends, and the departure depends on the second load being ready.
Neither is the right answer in general. We set out the trade-off and you choose, which is a different conversation from being sold one.
What decides whether things survive
Packing quality, crating of the rigid fragile items, and an inventory accurate enough that a discrepancy is obvious. That is the whole list, and all three of them happen in London with our crew in the room before a wheel turns.
It is why we treat the packing visit as the important day rather than the loading day. By the time the van is on the motorway, everything that could be decided has been decided.
Documents and declarations
A customs agent files the entry. You supply the documents and make the declarations, and the accuracy of both is legally yours rather than ours. We will tell you what is normally asked for on a route so that nothing is a surprise.
Nothing on this site is legal, tax, customs or immigration advice, and where a route has a genuine restriction we say so rather than leaving you to find out at the far end.
A crew that travels
Questions about a crew that travels
- 1Do your people travel with the load?
- Yes. On all four routes the same crew loads in London, drives, and unloads at the far end. The crossing itself is an operator's slot rather than ours, and we are straightforward about that.
- 2Who unloads at the other end?
- Our own crew. That is the whole reason these four destinations are the ones we run — they are close enough to reach by road, so there is no handover to a crew we have never met.
- 3Can you crate a piece of furniture?
- Yes, for rigid fragile items — mirrors, marble, framed work, glass-topped tables. It is the right answer far more often than people expect on a long road run.
- 4Which routes do you have dedicated pages for?
- France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Those four are the whole list, and the overseas hub sets out how each one runs.
Tell us the stairs, not the boxes
Both addresses, what floor each one is on, where a vehicle can legally stand at either end, and the widest thing you own. That is what sets the crew — and the crew is what sets the price.