Why organise a removals site around agreements?

Because in SW15 that is what differs. A room on a licence, a flatshare on one joint tenancy, a sole rental, a leasehold flat and a freehold house sit within a few streets of each other, and each one sets different dates, different notice and a different person to ask.

Is any of this legal advice?

No, and we say so on every page that touches it. What follows is a general description of common arrangements from a removals firm's point of view. For anything that actually matters, Citizens Advice and Shelter are free, independent and considerably better qualified.

One of us is leaving a flatshare. Can you just move their things?

Yes, and it is a large part of what we do here. What we would say is to settle the agreement side first — a joint tenancy does not end when one person's furniture does, and the removal is much the easier half.

What does a leaseholder have to arrange that a freeholder does not?

The building. Permitted move hours, a lift booking, and frequently a copy of our public liability insurance certificate for the managing agent. None of it is difficult and all of it is slow, so ask the week you exchange.

Who decides what is left behind?

Your document does. A sale contract lists which fixtures stay; a furnished tenancy means the landlord's furniture is not yours to move. Where there is doubt we leave it and ask rather than unscrew it and apologise.

Do you cover Roehampton and the Alton estates?

Throughout, and they need a different plan from the Putney terraces — estate roads, lift bookings and block access rather than kerbside parking on a residents' street.

Putney · Roehampton · SW15

What did you sign?

It is a stranger question than how many bedrooms and it predicts far more. Within a few streets here you will find a room on a licence, a flatshare on one joint tenancy, a sole rental, a leasehold flat and a freehold house — and each one sets different dates, different notice and a different person to ask.

Get a quote Find your agreement

Nothing on this site is legal advice — it is how a removals firm sees these arrangements. Citizens Advice and Shelter are free, independent and better qualified.

Six agreements

Find the document, then the service

Sorted by what governs the address rather than by how much is in it, because in SW15 the document decides the dates, the notice, the standard you hand the place back in and who has to be asked first.

You rent a room

A licence or a room-only agreement, in a house full of other people.

A room, and a licence

Lodgers, HMO rooms, student rooms

One room out of a house that stays occupied. The smallest job on this site and the one with the most other people in it — housemates using the kitchen, a hallway that cannot be blocked, and a landlord who may live there.

What it involves →

You rent the whole place

One agreement over the whole address — jointly, or on your own.

A joint tenancy

Everyone signed the same document

A flatshare where one agreement covers everybody. Straightforward while the household moves together and genuinely awkward when one person leaves mid-term, which in this postcode happens constantly.

What it involves → III

A tenancy of your own

A sole or couple tenancy, and a check-out

The standard rental move. The document sets the end date, the notice and the condition you have to hand the place back in — and the judgement is made on the empty room rather than the furnished one.

What it involves →

You own it

A lease with a freeholder above it, or a freehold with a chain behind it.

A lease

A freeholder, an agent and the communal parts

A flat you own, in a building you share. Your title stops at your front door, and everything between it and the street belongs to somebody with an opinion about move days, insurance certificates and the paintwork.

What it involves → V

A freehold sale

A completion, and a chain behind it

A house sale, where the document that matters is the contract and the hour that matters is set by solicitors. Nobody is asking permission here — you are simply waiting on money moving up a chain.

What it involves →

Nothing signed yet

Between two agreements, which is a scheduling fact rather than a failure.

Nothing signed yet

Held while the paperwork catches up

Between one agreement and the next. Goods collected, inventoried at the property and held — which in a postcode where tenancies end on fixed dates and start on flexible ones is the ordinary answer rather than a contingency.

What it involves →

What your agreement commits you to

Five documents, three questions each

What it says about dates, what condition you have to hand the place back in, and who has to be asked. Those three answers shape a move more than the furniture does, and most people have never read them side by side.

A licence or room-only agreement

Dates and notice

Usually the most flexible and the least protected. The notice your agreement specifies is often short, and a date can move with very little warning.

Condition

Your room, and the shared parts you are expected to leave as you found them. There may be no formal inventory at all, which cuts both ways.

Who to ask

Whoever you signed with — frequently a live-in landlord or a letting agent managing a house in multiple occupation. Ask about the hallway as well as the room.

A joint tenancy

Dates and notice

One end date for everybody, and one notice. An individual leaving before it does not end the agreement, and that is the source of most of the difficulty on this kind of move.

Condition

The whole property, judged against one check-in inventory and one deposit held for the group. Damage in a shared kitchen is everybody's problem.

Who to ask

The agent or landlord, and — genuinely — the other tenants. A replacement tenant, a deposit reassignment and a furniture split all need agreeing between people rather than decided by you.

III

A sole or couple tenancy

Dates and notice

A fixed term, a periodic continuation, or a notice you serve. The end date is the one hard point in the whole move and it does not negotiate.

Condition

The empty property, judged by a clerk against the check-in inventory. The standard is the room after the furniture has gone, which is not the same as the room you have been living in.

Who to ask

The agent, about check-out timing and about whether the building restricts move hours. Ask both in the same email and ask early.

A lease

Dates and notice

Yours to choose, subject to a sale and to the building. The constraint is not the calendar; it is what the freeholder and the managing agent permit.

Condition

Your own flat is your business. The communal parts are the freeholder's responsibility, recharged through the service charge, which is why damage there becomes everybody's bill.

Who to ask

The managing agent — about permitted move hours, lift bookings and whether they want our public liability certificate. They usually do, and they are rarely quick.

A freehold title

Dates and notice

Set by completion, which is set by money moving up a chain. Nobody in the chain can tell you the hour and nobody is being unhelpful about it.

Condition

Whatever your sale contract says stays. Fixtures listed as included are not yours to take, and that is the commonest post-completion argument there is.

Who to ask

Your solicitor, about the likely completion hour and the length of the chain. Tell us both — they change what we plan for.

This is a general description of common arrangements from a removals firm’s point of view. It is not legal advice, and your own document governs. Citizens Advice and Shelter both cover this properly, free, and are considerably better qualified than we are.

When one person leaves a share

Five things that are true, whatever anybody in the kitchen says

The commonest situation in this postcode and the least well written about. Almost none of the difficulty is the furniture, which is why a removals firm saying so is worth more than a removals firm quoting for it.

The agreement does not end when you leave

A joint tenancy binds everybody who signed it until it ends or is formally changed. Moving your furniture out does not, on its own, remove you from it — which is why the paperwork side usually needs sorting before the removal side.

The deposit is one deposit

It was protected as a single sum for the whole tenancy and it is returned at the end of it, not in instalments as people leave. Any settling-up between housemates is a private arrangement, and it goes much better written down.

A replacement has to be agreed, not just found

Landlord or agent consent is usually needed, and the agreement is frequently varied or re-signed rather than amended informally. Finding somebody willing is the easy part.

The furniture question is a private one

Who owns the sofa in a shared living room is almost never written down. We will move what you tell us is yours; where there is disagreement we will not adjudicate, and the item stays.

The move itself is the easy part

A room out of an occupied house, in a few hours, without blocking a hallway anybody else needs. Book it once the other four are settled rather than before — an unbooked move is easier to move than an unsettled agreement.

General description, not legal advice — your agreement governs and Shelter and Citizens Advice cover it properly. What we can do is hold a provisional slot while you sort the first four out. See joint tenancies.

Leaving the country

Putney to Europe, by road

Four routes with their own pages, each carrying the road out, the regions we deliver into and a document list split between what you obtain and what we obtain. We are a road firm — anything needing sea or air freight is referred to a specialist rather than quoted here.

Putney to Germany

Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg and the Rhine-Ruhr.

Route, customs and questions →

Putney to Netherlands

Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven.

Route, customs and questions →

Putney to Ireland

Dublin, Cork, Galway and the west, by road and ferry.

Route, customs and questions →

Putney to Denmark

Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and the Jutland cities.

Route, customs and questions →

An SW15 agreement does not care that the next address is abroad. The notice your tenancy specifies still applies, the check-out still happens, and a joint tenancy still binds everybody who signed it — which is why these moves are usually collected to the British date and held. How the European side works.

Asked most often

Questions from around SW15

01
Why organise a removals site around agreements?

Because in SW15 that is what differs. A room on a licence, a flatshare on one joint tenancy, a sole rental, a leasehold flat and a freehold house sit within a few streets of each other, and each one sets different dates, different notice and a different person to ask.
02
Is any of this legal advice?

No, and we say so on every page that touches it. What follows is a general description of common arrangements from a removals firm's point of view. For anything that actually matters, Citizens Advice and Shelter are free, independent and considerably better qualified.
03
One of us is leaving a flatshare. Can you just move their things?

Yes, and it is a large part of what we do here. What we would say is to settle the agreement side first — a joint tenancy does not end when one person's furniture does, and the removal is much the easier half.
04
What does a leaseholder have to arrange that a freeholder does not?

The building. Permitted move hours, a lift booking, and frequently a copy of our public liability insurance certificate for the managing agent. None of it is difficult and all of it is slow, so ask the week you exchange.
05
Who decides what is left behind?

Your document does. A sale contract lists which fixtures stay; a furnished tenancy means the landlord's furniture is not yours to move. Where there is doubt we leave it and ask rather than unscrew it and apologise.
06
Do you cover Roehampton and the Alton estates?

Throughout, and they need a different plan from the Putney terraces — estate roads, lift bookings and block access rather than kerbside parking on a residents' street.

More on the questions page — rooms and licences, joint tenancies, your own tenancy, leaseholds and freeholds, the area itself, and what the quote is built from.

What did you sign?

Both addresses, and what kind of agreement governs the one you are leaving. That second answer tells us most of what we need to know.

Get a quote Contact us