How to Choose a Removal Company

Choosing a removal company is a job most people do once or twice a decade, and the market knows it. You cannot build up experience as a customer, so you need something better than experience: a checklist, and the nerve to walk away from vague answers.

We have spent years on the answering side of those questions, and we know which ones separate a proper removal company from a man with a van and a website. Below is our own checklist, run against our own operation. Check any company with it, including us.

The checklist at a glance

A company that passes all seven is a professional operation. A company that dodges two or three is asking you to accept risk it has not priced, and the cost of that usually lands on move day.

Check 1: they survey before they quote

This is the single sharpest test. Until someone has seen what you are moving, every figure they give you is a guess, and guesses resolve in one direction: extra charges on the day, when you have no room to argue.

A proper company will offer a survey before it names a number. With us that survey is free and takes about twenty minutes for most homes, on a video call or a WhatsApp walk-through, with an in-person visit for larger or more complex moves. The survey is what makes a fixed price possible: volume, access, parking, packing, all of it is known before the price is written, so nothing has to stay flexible on the day.

The warning sign is the opposite: a price offered over the phone in ninety seconds, with no questions about stairs, parking or how much stuff you actually have. That number is built to win the call, not to be the number you pay. If a company will not look at your move before pricing it, ask yourself which part of the price they are keeping flexible.

Check 2: the quote is fixed, written, and covers the whole job

Fixed and written are doing real work in that sentence. A fixed quote means the price you agree is the price you pay. Not an estimate with “subject to change” tucked in the small print, not a day rate that stretches with the job. The survey captures everything that could move the number, and the figure you sign covers it.

A written quote that covers the whole job names what is inside it. On ours, that is the crew, the vehicle, blankets and straps, wrapping materials and floor protection, insurance for your belongings, and fuel. It also means the awkward items are priced rather than discovered: the third-floor walk up, the parking arrangements, the packing you are handing over. If a quote is silent on any of those, they are not absent, they are deferred.

The difference shows up on the invoice. Across the industry, final bills collect extras so often they are nearly standard line items: stairs priced per floor, long-carry fees when the lorry cannot reach the door, fuel surcharges, weekend uplifts, wrapping materials by the roll. On a genuinely fixed quote none of that can appear, because the survey already saw it all. The only thing that should ever change your price is a change you make to the job, and that gets requoted before anyone starts.

Check 3: insurance stated in real figures

Ask any company what insurance they carry and you will hear words like “fully insured”. That phrase has no legal meaning. Two companies can both call themselves fully insured while one carries a tenth of the other’s cover, and you find out which one only if something goes wrong.

Insist on figures. The two covers that matter are goods in transit, which insures your belongings while they are being moved, and public liability, which covers the people and property around the job. Ours are £50,000 of goods in transit cover and £1,000,000 of public liability, stated on our service pages rather than revealed on request.

A company that hedges on figures, or offers cover “up to” a number it will not put in writing, is telling you something. Insurance is one area where the vague answer is itself the answer.

Check 4: own crews, not whoever turned up

This is the check most people never think to ask. Who actually arrives on move day?

Some removal companies run their own employed, trained crews. Others book the job and hand it to freelance crews, so the people walking into your home are strangers to the company you booked, working to a different standard with different equipment. On a complicated move that gap is the difference between a job and an ordeal.

We run our own crews. They are employed and trained by us, they wear our uniforms, and they turn up with our vehicles and our wrapping materials, so the company you book is the company that does the work. Crew size is set per job against volume, access and complexity, with vehicles from 3.5 to 18 tonnes and tail lifts for heavy items, and the same team stays with your move from the first box to the final room.

There is no way to verify this from a website, so ask the question straight: are the people arriving on move day employed by you? A confident yes, with detail behind it, is what you want to hear.

Check 5: reviews you can actually read

A rating is a summary. Reviews are the evidence, and the difference matters more in removals than in most trades because the product is invisible until the day itself.

Look for three things. Recency: crews, standards and even ownership change, so the recent record is what counts. Substance: reviews that describe the actual job, the crew, the timing and how problems were handled, rather than “great service, thanks”. And how the company responds when something went wrong, because what happens next is the real test.

We hold a 5.0 rating on Google from more than 160 five-star reviews, and we would rather you read the reviews themselves than take the number on faith. Look at what customers say about the crews by name, about timing, and about how the moves that did not go to plan were handled.

Check 6: prices published before you call

The cheapest check to run, because it costs you nothing. Before you speak to anyone, see what the company is willing to put on the record.

We publish our guide price ranges openly, the same ones on our house removals in London page:

Those are guides, not quotes. The accurate figure comes from the survey, which is free, and the price we agree is fixed before the move. We start at two-bedroom homes - studios and one-bedroom moves are not taken on their own. Office moves carry published desk-count bands too, on our London office removals page. If your dates need storage in between, our container storage rates are published as well, and everything sits in sealed containers at our own yard in Harlow.

Most movers publish nothing. That silence is a pricing habit, not a policy: keep the ball hidden until the customer is already committed. You do not have to play that game, and the checklist above is how you refuse to.

Check 7: payment terms that keep everyone honest

A small deposit to book and the balance once the job is done keeps both sides honest. The deposit secures your date. The balance due after completion means the company has to finish the job well to get paid in full.

Our terms run exactly that way. A 10% deposit at booking secures your date, the balance is due after the move is complete, once everything is in and you have seen the job done, and we take payment by bank transfer, card or cash.

Deposit sizes vary across the trade, and there is no single right number. What matters is the shape. A modest deposit to secure the date is normal. A large share of the money before a single box is packed is worth asking about, because the answer tells you where the risk sits.

The checklist, run on us

If you run Aviv through the seven checks, here is the record:

• Survey first. Free video call or WhatsApp walk-through of about twenty minutes, in person for larger homes, before any figure is named.
• Fixed and written. The price we agree is the price you pay. Stairs, carries, parking, materials and fuel are priced at survey, not discovered on the day.
• Insurance in figures. £50,000 goods in transit, £1,000,000 public liability, stated on our service pages.
• Own crews. Employed and trained by us, in our uniforms, in our vehicles from 3.5 to 18 tonnes. No subcontracted labour.
• Readable reviews. 5.0 on Google from more than 160 five-star reviews you can open and read in full.
• Published ranges. Guide prices for house and office moves, and our storage rates, on the site before you call anyone.
• Payment terms in the open. 10% deposit at booking, balance after the move is complete.

That is the standard we hold ourselves to. Apply it to every company you talk to, us included.

Ready to put us to the test?

Send us the details of your move and we will survey it, free, and come back with a fixed written quote that passes every check on this page.

Prefer to talk first? Call 0207 846 0282 or email info@avivremovals.com. Ask us anything on the checklist above. We would rather be checked than chosen on guesswork.

Written by Adam, owner of Aviv Removals - 15 years in the removals trade.