Into Europe
Not every Nottingham move stops at the ring road. We take households out of the NG districts to France, Spain, Italy and Portugal — packed here, loaded here, and delivered at the other end by the same firm.
There is a version of European removals where your things are collected by one firm, tipped into a warehouse, re-handled by a second and delivered by a third who has never spoken to anybody involved. It is cheap and it is where nearly all the horror stories come from.
Ours is simpler. The load goes on at your address — the terrace in Sherwood, the conversion in the Lace Market — and that consignment stays together. Down the M1, round to the M25 and the M20, through the tunnel at Folkestone, and on to the destination. The customs paperwork is prepared before the vehicle moves rather than improvised at a border.
Because these are the four we can stand behind end to end. It would be easy to list twenty destinations and quietly sub-contract eighteen of them to firms we have never met, and plenty of sites do exactly that. We would rather run four routes properly. If you are going somewhere else in Europe, ask anyway — we will tell you honestly whether we can help.
The shortest crossing and the one most Nottingham households do first — a posting to Paris, a house in the south-west finally being furnished.
Île-de-France · Normandy · Brittany · Nouvelle-Aquitaine · Occitanie · Provence
The Nottingham–France routeThe busiest British route in Europe. Retirement to the coast, work in Madrid or Barcelona, and increasingly people working remotely from Valencia.
Madrid · Catalonia · Valencia · Andalusia · Murcia · the Balearics by ferry
The Nottingham–Spain routeFewer moves, more complicated ones. Northern cities for work, Tuscany and Umbria for restorations, the lakes for retirement.
Lombardy · Piedmont · Veneto · Tuscany · Umbria · Lazio
The Nottingham–Italy routeThe longest drive of the four, and increasingly a complete relocation rather than a holiday home being kitted out.
Lisbon · Cascais & Estoril · Porto · the Silver Coast · the Algarve
The Nottingham–Portugal routeBeing in the middle of the country is an advantage on this kind of move. From the NG postcodes it is the M1 south to the M25, round the eastern side and down the M20 to Folkestone — a straightforward run with no London traffic if it is timed sensibly. The vehicle is generally at the tunnel the same working day it leaves your street.
We also collect from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol. A household leaving the country is rarely all in one place — there is usually a storage unit, a parent's garage, a flat a grown-up child has been using. Arrange those collections early; adding one after the vehicle is loaded is a different proposition.
Moving a household out of the UK is now a customs export, and arriving is an import. In practice that means three things.
An inventory, itemised and valued line by line — not "box of kitchen" but a list a customs officer can reconcile against what is on the vehicle. Transit paperwork raised before the vehicle leaves, so the load is declared rather than discovered. And evidence for transfer of residence: proof you are genuinely leaving the UK and taking up residence at the destination, which is what allows used personal effects to move without import duty.
We prepare and lodge the export side and tell you exactly what to obtain and when. The pieces only you can get — your residency application, your address proof, anything needing your signature — have the longest lead times and are worth starting first. Each country page sets out what that looks like, because all four want it slightly differently.
This distinction matters more than anything else here. Transfer-of-residence relief applies when the destination becomes your primary residence. If you are staying UK-resident in Nottingham and furnishing a holiday house, that relief does not apply — the goods are a conventional import with duty and VAT assessed on declared value.
Plenty of people genuinely do not know which they are when they first ring, and that is fine. It just needs settling before we finalise the inventory valuation, because correcting it afterwards is painful.
A dedicated vehicle carries your household alone — it leaves when you are ready and drives straight there, which suits a full house and anyone with a firm date. A shared load consolidates your goods with other moves going the same way, so you pay for your share of the vehicle; the trade is waiting for it to fill and fitting around the other deliveries.
Neither comes with a day count from us. Transit depends on the route, the consolidation schedule and how clearance runs at both ends — your written quote sets out the expected window for your specific move and says plainly what would shift it.
Export packing is not domestic packing. Things are on a vehicle far longer, over rougher roads, with more handling at each end. Upholstery is wrapped and sealed rather than blanketed. Mirrors, marble and artwork get purpose-built crates. Voids get filled so nothing can shift.
If your Nottingham property has to be emptied before the destination is ready, goods can be held in sealed storage here and exported when you say.
Good to know
Yes. Since Brexit a household move out of the UK is a customs export, so there is an itemised and valued inventory, transit paperwork raised before the vehicle moves, and a transfer-of-residence process at the destination. We prepare and lodge the export side. What we need from you is the documentation proving you are leaving the UK and taking up residence at the other end.
It depends on the route, on whether your load has its own vehicle or is sharing one, and on how clearance runs at both ends. Rather than publish a figure we cannot stand behind, your written quote sets out an expected window for your specific move and says plainly what would shift it.
A dedicated vehicle carries your household and nothing else, so it leaves when you are ready and goes straight there. A shared load consolidates your goods with other moves on the same route, which costs less because you pay for your share of the vehicle — the trade is waiting for it to fill and fitting around the other deliveries.
It starts at your address, which for most of our European work is somewhere in the NG postcodes. From there it is the M1 south, round to the M25 and down the M20 to Folkestone. We also collect from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol where a household is spread across more than one address.
Those are the four we run properly and can stand behind end to end. We would rather do four routes well than list twenty and sub-contract most of them. If you are going elsewhere, ask anyway and we will tell you honestly whether we can help.
Sometimes, depending on route and vehicle. It changes the paperwork significantly — a vehicle has its own import requirements separate from household goods — so raise it at survey rather than on loading day.
The paperwork has a longer lead time than the packing. Tell us where you are going and roughly when, and we will tell you what to get moving on now.