Before you compare quotations

By counting events, not journeys. Every time an item leaves the ground and is set down again somewhere else, that is one. Loading and unloading at your two addresses is two. Everything beyond that is something happening in the middle.

For the goods, yes. For your circumstances, not necessarily — a direct load means buying a whole vehicle, and if you are moving a small flat a long way that can be poor value. The right answer is the lowest count you can sensibly afford, not the lowest count available.

No. A dedicated load to the far north of Scotland is the same two handlings as a move across a town. The vehicle stays loaded overnight rather than being emptied, and that is the whole difference.

No, they are part of one handling. The item has not been set down. But they are where the risk inside a handling concentrates, which is why the door frames and the stair turn get attention before anything moves.

On a dedicated load, yes. The people who wrapped an item are the people who set it down. On a shared load that is not possible, and it is one of the things you are trading away.

Loaded and secured, with the driver. It is not emptied into a depot and it is not left unattended in a lay-by. Where that is not possible on a particular route we will say so before you book.

Yes — two collections or two deliveries are normal and they do not change the count, because nothing is set down in between. Tell us at the enquiry so the load is built in the right order.

The load stays on the vehicle while we work out the best option with you. Unloading into a hall so it can be moved again later is a handling nobody counted and we would rather avoid it.

Every item and every carton is listed and labelled to your consignment at your house before it leaves. The list travels with the goods and is checked at each transfer.

When the vehicle fills, which is the part people underestimate. If your dates are firm, a part-load is the wrong choice and we will say so rather than take the booking.

It carries more handlings, which is a real difference rather than a marketing one. It is not unsafe — it is two extra opportunities for something to go wrong, and it should be priced and packed accordingly.

We would rather you did not. On a dedicated load, home-packed cartons are usually fine. On a consignment that will be transferred twice, packing quality is doing much more work and it is worth having it done properly.

Because a list compiled later at a counter is a list of cartons, not of contents. On a hold that turns out to be longer than anybody expected, the difference between those two is considerable.

With reasonable notice, and it works far better if you say beforehand roughly what you might want. The load is then built so that whatever you named is reachable without dismantling the stack.

A single night between a load and a delivery, or months while a purchase or a building project settles. The storage agreement sets out the terms and the periods charging runs in.

Nothing hazardous, nothing perishable, nothing alive. Money, documents, passports, medication and jewellery stay with you, because a store is not somewhere you can call in on at short notice.

Because they are the routes where the handling count genuinely differs between options, and where the difference is rarely explained. On a short hop to France it barely matters. On a Baltic or a sea route it decides how your goods should be packed.

Yes, across most of western and central Europe. The four with their own pages are the ones where we have something specific to say about handling; the rest are covered from the main international page.

We prepare the half that comes from the inventory — the described list, the export declaration and the import entry. The half attached to you as a person has to come from you, and each country page sets out which is which.

Yes. It is built for a consignment that will be handled repeatedly by people who did not pack it, which is a different specification from packing for a van that will be opened by the same crew.

Because the figure depends on the volume, the two addresses, the access at each and the option you choose, and none of those is known before the enquiry. A published rate card would be a number we could not stand behind.

Gladly, and on a long run we usually do it without being asked. Two quotations with the handling counts written on both is the most useful thing we can give you.

At the property where the volume or the access is uncertain, and remotely by photographs and measurements where it plainly is not. We will say which yours needs rather than insisting on a visit for its own sake.

Tell us as soon as you notice, and in writing within the period the terms set out. Keep the item and its packaging so both can be examined. We would far rather deal with it directly than have you reading clauses alone.