Most people do not move house very often, so the first week always feels messy. You look at a full flat, you think about the kitchen, and you put it off for another day. That is normal. The good news is that a house move is not one big job. It is thirty small jobs, and once you write them down in order, the whole thing gets a lot calmer.

Here is the plan we give our own customers in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and the rest of the emirates. It works for a studio and it works for a five bedroom villa. Only the size of each step changes.

Start four weeks out, even if you only have two

The first thing to fix is the date. Everything else hangs on it. Check your tenancy end date, the handover date on the new place, and any notice you owe the building. If those three do not line up, you either need a few days of storage or a small overlap in rent. It is much cheaper to find that out now than on the morning of the move.

Once the date is set, book a survey. A good mover will come and look at your home, or do it over a video call, and give you a fixed price. A price given over the phone with no idea of what you own is a guess, and guesses grow on moving day.

• Confirm your moving date and your handover date
• Book a home survey and get a written quote
• Tell your building you are moving and ask what they need
• Book the lift or the service entrance if you live in a tower
• Start a folder for your tenancy papers, Ejari, and NOC

Get rid of things before you pay to move them

This is the part that saves the most money. You pay to move volume. Every broken kettle, every school file from 2016 and every spare curtain rail takes space in the truck. Go room by room with three piles: keep, give away, throw. Give yourself twenty minutes a room and do not sit down with old photos, or the evening is gone.

Clothes and books are the two biggest wins in most homes. Kitchen cupboards are the third. If you have not used it in a year and you would not buy it again today, it does not need a new address.

Pack in the right order

Pack the rooms you barely use first. Guest room, store room, balcony, and the top shelves. Leave the kitchen and bathrooms for the last two days, because you will keep needing them. Bedding and towels come off on the morning itself.

Label every box on the side, not the top. Once boxes are stacked you cannot read the tops. Write the room it is going to, not the room it came from, and add one or two words about what is inside. Two boxes marked kitchen and one box marked kitchen, kettle and mugs are two very different mornings.

Keep one box aside that travels with you. Phone chargers, a change of clothes, medicine, kettle, tea, some snacks, toilet roll, a knife for cutting tape, and the keys and papers for both homes. Do not let that box go in the truck.

Moving day itself

Be there at the start and at the end. In the middle you can step out for coffee. When the crew arrives, walk them around and point out the fragile pieces, the items you are not taking, and anything with a scratch already on it. Two minutes of talking saves an hour of guessing.

Check the inventory before the truck leaves and again when it is unloaded. Count the boxes. If something is damaged, say it on the day and take a photo. Everyone is reasonable on the day; nobody enjoys a phone call three weeks later.

The first night in the new home

Do not try to finish everything. Build the beds, get the bathrooms working, plug in the fridge and order food. Unpack the kitchen the next morning when you have daylight and patience. Most families are properly settled in about a week, and that is fine.

One last tip. Take meter readings and photos of every room before you put anything down. It is boring, it takes five minutes, and it has saved more security deposits than any other habit we know.

Questions People Ask