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5 Tips for changing your paperwork when moving house

Feb 13, 2018
5 Tips for changing your paperwork when moving house

When moving house, it’s important to keep your head above water when it comes to the paperwork. From home and contents insurance to utilities and healthcare, here are our five top tips for handling the paperwork when moving house.

1. Always Prioritise

You’ll have lots of paperwork to sort through when moving house, so it’s important to prioritise to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Certain documents, such as your house buyer’s contract, are absolutely crucial to the big move. Other paperwork, like updating your address details for your home and contents insurance and utilities, are worth doing a few days or weeks in advance. Once you’ve moved you should change the address on your driving license and with your bank. If you are moving to a new area completely, you should move doctor’s surgery, because, if you need a call out and haven’t registered with a new surgery, it won’t be as easy to be seen quickly by the medical services.

2. Share responsibilities

When it comes to paperwork, ‘divide and conquer’ is the best mentality. Split the responsibility for filling out forms and updating details with your partner. Keep track of progress by using apps such as Trello, Google Docs or Google Sheets, or by simply using a good old-fashioned notepad.

3. Establish an easy-to-use filing system

Filing doesn’t have to be onerous, and it’s worth establishing a system so you can access documents quickly and easily. Buy a folder for household paperwork, and split into categories such as ‘home and contents insurance’, ‘car insurance’, ‘energy bills’ and ‘house ownership documents’. A little effort now goes a long way, and you’ll thank yourself when you’re in the midst of the big move.

4. Keep all paperwork to hand

You’ll need easy access to your paperwork when moving, so make sure you keep any essential documents such as your insurance policies, warranties, and any other important records in a safe, secure place. Always ensure the most important paperwork doesn’t make its way to the bottom of a miscellaneous box, to save yourself a giant headache. Instead, keep it all to hand, so you can locate anything quickly if required to present it.

5. Come up with a plan of action for updating your address details

You’ll have lots of phone calls to make when you move house, so it’s worth coming up with a plan of action for contacting utility companies and insurance providers in advance. If you’re thinking about changing your current provider, you can do your research before moving by using sites such as uSwitch or MoneySuperMarket. Remember that you don’t have to use the same supplier as the one you’re moving with and you can select one you prefer. However, keep in mind that you can only switch energy supplier once you’re officially the new owner.

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