2000 onwards
Moving out of a London new-build apartment
Good lifts, good bays — and a concierge with a booking sheet that fills up.
The apartment blocks built across London since 2000 — along the river, around the regeneration sites, at Nine Elms, Stratford, Greenwich Peninsula, Wembley and Canada Water — are on paper the easiest buildings in the city to move out of.
They have service lifts sized for furniture, dedicated loading bays, level access and no stairs to speak of. Physically, the work is straightforward.
What replaces the physical difficulty is administrative. Everything has to be booked, and the booking system is usually the constraint.
Everything is bookable, and everything is booked
Most developments require the loading bay and the service lift to be reserved in advance through the concierge or building manager, often with several days’ notice and in a fixed slot. On a large development with hundreds of flats, the popular slots at month end are taken well ahead.
Many buildings restrict move-in and move-out hours entirely — commonly excluding evenings and Sundays, and sometimes excluding Saturdays too. Those rules are set by the management company and are not negotiable on the day.
A significant number require the service lift to be fitted with protective blankets, and some insist their own staff fit them, which has to be scheduled. Proof of public liability insurance is close to universal.
Underground car parks have height restrictions that a removal vehicle frequently exceeds. Where that applies, the load runs from a surface bay and the carry is longer than the building’s marketing suggests.
Other kinds of building
Next step
Moving out of one of these?
Send us the address, the floor, and a photograph of the staircase or the lift. We will tell you what the building allows before we talk about anything else.