Flats & apartments
Flat removals — stairs, lifts and agents.
Flat moves rarely fail on volume. A one-bed is a one-bed. They fail on the route between the flat door and the vehicle, and on whose permission you needed and did not get.
The three variables
The route out
The half-landing with a turn. The fire door that will not stay open. The communal hallway you are not supposed to block. The lift that takes three boxes at a time and is shared with everyone else in the building.
None of these are difficult. All of them are slow if nobody planned for them, and the cumulative effect across a whole flat is hours rather than minutes.
The building's rules
Managed blocks set the terms. A booked goods lift, a reserved loading bay, a permitted move window, and often proof of insurance lodged with the managing agent before anyone is allowed through the door.
We will tell you exactly what to ask them for. What we cannot do is obtain it on your behalf at short notice, and a move refused entry on the day is the most avoidable problem in this trade.
The communal areas
Protected before anything is carried — floors boarded, bannisters padded, lift interiors blanketed. This is where damage disputes begin, and the cost of a scuffed shared stairwell lands on your deposit or your service charge rather than ours.
Conversions versus purpose-built
A converted house behaves nothing like a modern block. One original staircase serving several households, narrow treads, turned bannisters that mark, and a front door opening straight onto a pavement. Purpose-built blocks trade that for procedure: better access, more permissions.
Both are routine. They just need different questions asked first.
What we need before quoting
The floor at each end. Whether there is a lift and roughly its internal size. Whether the staircase turns. Where the vehicle can legally stand, and how far the carry is from there to the door. With those five, a flat move is predictable; without them it is a guess, and guesses are the quotes that change on the day.
A whole house instead? House removals. A single room? Man and van.
Flat move questions
Does the building need notice?
In a managed block, almost always — a booked goods lift, a loading bay, and frequently our insurance details lodged with the managing agent. Start that the moment you have a date. Building permission is more often the bottleneck than a removals diary is.
What if there is no lift?
Then the stairs decide the crew, and we size it accordingly rather than sending a standard team and hoping. What we need to know beforehand is the floor and whether the staircase turns, because a turn is what stops a sofa, not the number of steps.
What if the lift breaks on the day?
We plan for it. Wherever there is a lift we still ask about the stair route as a fallback and crew for that possibility, so a lift out of service is an inconvenience rather than a cancelled move.
Do you protect the communal areas?
Always. Shared hallways, stairwells and lift interiors are where deposit disputes and freeholder letters start, and the other residents did not ask to be part of your move. Boards down, bannisters padded, lift blanketed.
Can you move part of a furnished flat?
Yes — part-furnished tenancies mean some things go and some stay. Agree what is moving at survey and we will inventory it, rather than working it out on the morning with an agent waiting for keys.
Moving a flat?
Both addresses, the floor at each end, and roughly what is going. That is enough for us to survey it and put a figure in writing.