Moving your household contents from the UK to Spain is fraught with potential hiccups.
What if your previous family heirlooms get broken in transit? Or worse, goes missing completely? Suppose you arrive at your new home and have nothing to sit on as the lorry has been delayed? When Tina and Lloyd Wishart decided to move to Spain from Lewisham in southeast London they wanted to make life easy for themselves.
Clearing a three-bedroom house where they’d accumulated a lifetime’s worth of possessions was bad enough, says Tina, who spent days attempting to de-clutter their house contents. “After deciding that we wanted to move to the Costa Blanca we sold our UK home really quickly, so I suddenly had to start clearing out the garage, the loft, the spare bedrooms,” says Tina, 56, who had a demanding full-time job as a compliance officer at the time.
Their move was complicated – though not unusual – by the fact they hadn’t yet found a Spanish home so were going to have to put their stuff into storage. But in starting their search they visited A Place in the Sun Live at London’s Excel in May 2024 and met Indalo Transport – a specialist UK-Spanish removals company.
“We were immensely relieved when they explained they could take care of everything,” says Tina. “They could pack up our London house, keep our stuff at their warehouse in Almeria, and then transport it to our new home – wherever that might be. “Because I met them face to face I felt reassured that I was going to be entrusting all our worldly goods with them. There’s a lot at stake!”
Tina and Lloyd, 72, also managed to start their property search and met Spain Property Specialists there and in October ended up buying a three-bedroom house in Ciudad Quesada. They wanted somewhere large enough for their three children and three grandchildren to enjoy. Tina was given a helpful timeline (see below) from Indalo – to help plan the move. “After a video tour they gave me a quote based on cubic metres. I was going to use their packing and unpacking service too.”
After chucking out, selling or taking items to charity shops – though not enough, she now admits – she had to make lists of everything to go in boxes, for Customs. The packing team would then seal the boxes. “It was hard for us as at the time I hadn’t seen what was going to be left in the home we were as yet to buy. I wasn’t sure: was it cheaper to take out electrical goods with English plugs, or buy new ones out there?
“I did shop around and get comparative quotes and was quoted between £7,000 and £10,000 for the move and storage.” Her move – from a larger than average house - cost around £9,000, including £450 Customs documentation service. You might think you could do a home move yourself - what is hard about chucking some boxes in a van and driving over? But since Brexit, it’s more complicated.
The Customs documentation charge is kept as a separate item by Indalo for transparency, and includes: Full itemised Inventory, Transit document, Export declaration, Import declaration and Safety & Security Declaration.
In 99% of moves there is a tax liability on a move to Spain. The import tax charge is Spanish VAT at 21% worked out from the 'declared value’ and the cost of transport.
In Tina’s case the insured valuation of £25,000 meant it cost around €411. When they were ready for their furniture they gave the company two weeks’ notice and it arrived in Quesada in January – all present and correct (for the record, Indalo is a symbol of protection good fortune).
“Indalo made it all very easy. Even when it became clear that the cubic metres had been under-estimated we agreed an agreeable new price,” she says. She’s now still unpacking bits and waiting to Lloyd to join her when his residencia is sorted. “I am Danish, so we are lucky that it makes a move to the EU easier – but it’s still taking a while. We love life in Spain and after a couple of cancer scares decided to just make the most of life whilst we are able to.”
Indalo Transport’s moving home checklist
Three months to go
- Sort through all your belongings and get rid of items you no longer need. Note down whether need special packaging or extra insurance cover.
- Start researching removals companies - are they Trading Standards Approved, are they members of any professional organisations? Can they handle customs clearance and transfer of residency on your behalf?
- When the removal company surveys the move, are they taking account of special packing requirements? Consider a full packing service, to help ease your stress.
- Contact the vet for your dog or cat to get their Pet Passport and arrange to get the Animal Health Certificate. How will you take the pet?
- Create a 'moving binder' for important documents to hand, including passports, driving licences, etc. Back up your hard drive and upload key files to cloud storage.
Two months to go
- Order packing materials. Your removal company should be able to help with this, by supplying strong triple wall boxes.
- If you have not included a packing service with your removal, start to pack away the contents of the house, leaving out the essentials that you need for the next month.
One month to go
- Start using up things that you can’t take on the move, like frozen or perishable foods and cleaning supplies.
- Your professional removal company will need to create a comprehensive inventory for customs purposes.
- Check that all your final bill payments are arranged. Make the final payment to the removal company at least 5 days before moving day.
SEARCH FOR PROPERTY IN CIUDAD QUESADA
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