MovePlanMoving house, explained properly
Free guides to every part of a UK house move — written to be genuinely useful on their own, whether or not you ever buy anything from us.
Plan the move
What to do, in what order, and what it's going to cost.
Moving house timeline: week by week
Eight weeks is enough if the right things happen in the right order. Here's the sequence, and the three tasks whose lead times decide everything else.
What moving house actually costs
The removal van is rarely the biggest number. Here’s the full list, including the ones that only appear once it’s too late to plan for them.
Moving house in Scotland: what's different
Most UK moving guides are English guides with “and Scotland” tacked on. The process north of the border is genuinely different at five points, and two of them change your dates.
Moving house in Northern Ireland: what's different
Northern Ireland is closer to England's process than Scotland's — you still exchange contracts — but three things are genuinely its own, and one UK-wide guide phrase ("council tax") doesn't even apply here.
Moving house in Wales: what's actually different
A lot of "moving to Wales" content implies a wholly separate process, the way Scotland genuinely is. Mostly it isn't — here's the honest two-item list of what actually changes.
End of tenancy checklist
Deposit disputes are won on evidence, not on how clean the oven is. Here’s what to do, and what to photograph.
Tell everyone
The forty-odd organisations, which ones carry a legal duty, and how to get through them quickly.
Who to notify when you move house
There are about forty of them, three carry a legal duty, and one carries a £1,000 fine. Here they are in the order they actually need doing.
Telling your insurer you're moving house
Most change-of-address jobs cost you an afternoon if you forget them. This one can cost you a claim, and it's the only one on the list where the deadline is before you move rather than after.
Change of address checklist
Most checklists are an alphabetical list of forty organisations, which tells you nothing about what to do first. This one is ordered by when it actually matters.
Council tax when you move house
Two councils, two separate jobs, and a common trap where you end up paying both at once. Here's how it actually works.
Gas and electricity when you move house
Two suppliers to deal with, one of which you've never heard of until you find out who it is. None of it is hard, but the order matters, and a prepayment meter changes the first thing you should do.
Your water bill when you move house
Water is the one utility you don't pick. The company comes with the address, and in Scotland and Northern Ireland there may be no separate water account to move at all. What's left is a short job, and the part that catches people is the meter.
DVLA change of address
It's two updates, not one, and that's the whole reason this catches people out. Both are required by law and both are free.
Broadband when moving house
This has the longest lead time of anything in a move and the least visible deadline. It is the task most likely to make your first fortnight miserable.
Updating the electoral roll when you move house
Council tax and the electoral roll are two different registers, so paying one doesn't register you for the other — and this is the one most people assume is automatic when it isn't.
Changing your GP when you move house
There's no form that moves your GP registration with you. You register as a new patient at a surgery covering your new address, and your old practice's records follow on afterwards.
TV Licence change of address
A TV Licence is tied to the address, not to you — so unlike your driving licence, it genuinely does not follow you when you move.
Royal Mail redirection — is it worth it, and for how long?
The question people actually argue about isn't whether to redirect. It's whether three months is enough, and it usually isn't.
Do you need to change your address on your passport?
No. A UK passport carries no address, and gov.uk says so directly — which makes it the one item on a moving checklist you can cross off without doing anything.
HMRC change of address when you move house
One sign-in, and it can only be done after you've moved. Don't count on payroll to do it for you, and for anyone crossing into or out of Scotland or Wales it decides which income tax rates you pay.
Moving house on benefits: who to tell, and when
There's no single place to report a new address for benefits. Each one is told separately, a few of them only after you've moved, and a move across the Scottish border starts a 13-week clock.
Changing your address with your bank when you move house
Nobody fines you for a late change of bank address the way DVLA or the council can. That doesn't make it optional — it's just a different kind of reason to do it.
Pension change of address when you move house
Nobody notifies your pension providers when you move — not your bank, not HMRC, not each other. Each one needs telling separately, and an old one you've lost track of needs a different fix.
Mortgage change of address when you move house
For most people selling one house and buying another, the mortgage doesn't need a change-of-address at all — the completion itself does that job. The cases where it actually matters are narrower, and different, from what the one-line checklist advice suggests.
Premium Bonds change of address when you move house
Don't count on your bank, HMRC or a Royal Mail redirection to update NS&I for you. Update it directly, and know which prizes actually depend on it.
Amazon change of address when you move house
Your default address and an order you've already placed are two different things on Amazon, and only one of them is easy to fix after the fact.
Student loan change of address when you move house
Moving house within the UK won't change what you repay, but the Student Loans Company still needs your new address, and if you're still studying, the move can change what you're paid.
Dentist and optician when you move house
A GP has a catchment area and a registration process. A dentist and an optician have neither — which sounds easier, and isn't always.
Hospital waiting list or referral when you move house
Every moving checklist says "tell the hospital" in one line. The real question is whether the wait you've already done survives the move — and that depends on how the move is handled, not on sending a letter.
Moving with others
The parts of a move that change completely when it isn't just you.
Moving house with children
The logistics are the easy part. School places have their own timetable, and it starts earlier than almost anyone expects.
Getting a school place when you move house
This is the task with the least give in it. Everything else on a move can be done late and fixed; a school place has a queue, a proof-of-address rule and an appeal timetable, and none of them care what day your completion is.
Moving house with pets
One item on this page is a legal requirement with a penalty attached, and it’s the one people forget: the microchip database.
Or have it all dated from your move
Every task above, dated from your actual move date, plus 13 address-change letters already filled in. £14.99, once.
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