You are moving house in a chain and completion day is coming.
The day runs on triggers, not on a clock
The single most useful thing to understand is that completion day has no timetable. It has a sequence, and each stage begins when the previous one finishes — which may be early, may be late, and is not in anybody's gift to schedule.
This is why a removal company that gives you a precise hour-by-hour plan is either inexperienced or telling you what you want to hear. What you should get instead is a sequence, the trigger for each stage, and a stated contingency for the stage that fails.
Load out comes before any legal event
Your things come out of the house before your sale has completed. That feels wrong the first time you hear it, and it is correct: being loaded before the legal machinery starts is the only thing that creates any flexibility later in the day.
It also means your packing has to be finished beforehand. Not mostly finished. This is the one stage of the day entirely within your control, and everything downstream is easier if you have used it well.
The hold is the stage nobody plans for
Between your sale completing and your purchase completing, there is a gap. Your old house is no longer yours and your new house is not yet yours, and everything you own is on a vehicle.
In London that gap is a logistical question with a real answer: where does a loaded removal lorry legally stand, and does the crew stay with it. Ask any company you are considering this question specifically. The answer tells you whether they have done this before.
- Ask where the vehicle will stand during the hold.
- Ask whether the crew stays with the load or goes to another job.
- Ask what happens if keys are not released at all.
- Get all three answers before you book, not on the day.
Keys, and who actually hands them over
Keys are released by the seller's solicitor to the estate agent, and the agent releases them to you once completion is confirmed. Your removal company cannot collect them on your behalf and an agent will not hand them to a crew.
So somebody has to physically go and get them. Decide beforehand who that is, make sure they can be reached, and make sure they are not the same person who needs to be at the old house supervising the load.
What to keep with you, not on the van
A bag that stays in your car or on your person, not in the load. Completion day is when "it is in a box somewhere" becomes a genuine problem.
- Documents, passports, and anything the solicitor might ask for.
- Medication, glasses, chargers and phone battery packs.
- A change of clothes for everyone, and anything a small child cannot be without.
- The kettle, mugs, tea and milk. This is not a joke.