Mopoke

We are moving from Sydney to Adelaide where we need to put our possessions into storage for some time. We've had the removalists in - Grace/Chess/Kent and the quotes are all in the ball park very similar. The shocking thing is how high they all are - way over the price we paid in feb 2019 to ship a 40 ft container [4 bed house plus car] from London to Sydney! I wanted to ask peoples' experiences with Kent and Chess [we have discounted Grace]. Both have similar removal costs of $11000 but Kent is cheaper on storage. Also, when we came to Oz, we didn't buy PSS's shipping insurance - instead opting for a third party recommended here. They were good. Kent and Chess have stupidly high transit insurance. Do people use third party insurance here or is is too much of a hassle? Does anyone have any recommendations for a good third party insurer?

I was wondering which advisor companies people are using that understand both Australian tax and UK tax? I know about GM Tax and BDHSterling [Alan] but want to know if there are other recommended Oz-UK specialists who people rate other than these two firms? I understand there are plenty of Aussie tax advisors but we're obviously looking for one who can help us with our UK affairs after moving as well. Thanks for any recommendations [can you add why you recommend them].

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, AS we are going to use Sydney storage but there is always the point that the best storage is your own house in the UK [if you haven't rented to sold]. That's why we're exploring it as one of so many options. Interesting point Nemesis as both the UK and Oz shipping companies have said there definitely is a limit - they just didn't know what it was. I may trying calling Border Force - does anybody have any recommendations for a decent number as their website seems bereft of emails and it would be great to avoid the departmental runaround.

I'm a tiny bit surprised no-one has come across this. Does everyone simply ship at the same time, even without a place to move into?

Sure. Britannia, PSS and Pickfords. We are going with PSS as we like their customer service so far. Some people use Australian ones directly but we didn't head down that route.

Go for three. We did and there was quite a price differential.

To import goods under the tariff code for personal effects, you must be arriving from a place outside Australia, and the goods must be your personal property that you owned while overseas. The detail is on the Agriculture department but interestingly the links don't work to home affairs. We were wondering how many months/years we had to ship our possessions before the Australian Government no longer classes them as "unaccompanied personal effects" and slaps import and GST on your belongings. Interestingly, the UK shipper said two years, the Australian partner said one year and another UK shipping company said 4 months. I asked each for a link to an Australian Government link showing the amount of time you have to ship your belongings - e.g. live in NSW for a bit and then once you have a proper address, ship your stuff. Noone had a link to this time period. I tried an email to Home Affairs and got no reply. Does anybody have a link on an Australian Government website that spells out the time you have to ship your possessions?

Oh no, we wouldn't want to unpack anything but Palmers have told us they won't accept claims unless things were inspected and cleared before going into long or short-term storage. It would be a shame to store for 5 years and then find key furniture was damaged and not be able to do anything about it [but still having paid for 5 years]. In fact for long-term storage direct from shipping the only way we have been able to see to keep insurance without unpacking and inspecting is to continue with the UK removals shipping insurance. That's a great point on the contents insurance - do people generally take contents insurance and include their stuff in storage? I assume that negates the need to take out insurance from the storage company. We didn't even think of that!

Thanks Marisa, yes it would only work if the short-term storage was not for a long time at all. In the scenario you map out above, this would mean that you would need to unpack everything to check for insurance purposes. Palmers have told us that to move to short term storage in Sydney everything would need to be inspected before they would insure it. With long-term insurance you can continue the cover without inspection, for years if need be. Seems there are lots of pros and cons.

Thanks all, I'm still keen to hear the experiences of anybody who has done long-term storage for longer than a year. On the "why wouldn't you move your content's into a flat?" question, we have a house in the UK and will be moving into a one bed flat [most likely] while we look for work - I'm not convinced it would fit in a way we would be able to live normally without falling over boxes or furniture.

Hi SusieRoo, a number of exporters have told me that rates are as cheap as they have seen for a while to Oz - it's just when you get to Australia you have to start throwing money at people. So shipping only for a car at 20ft has been around £1100-1300 and 40ft £2100-2300. Interestingly, hi-cube 40ft [what we're opting for] doesn't add a lot at the moment and you get a decent increase in volume. For cars, some charges include: Clearance, Import Inspection Fee, Quarantine entry, Wharf transport, Container unpack, Quarantine inspection(s), Steam cleaning, Customs vehicle valuation, Management fees We got quotes from Britannia, PSS and Pickfords - the first two were similar and the latter was a lot more than the other two. I can't give you shipping only for these guys as they lump all of the costs together. We are almost certainly going to choose PSS as we like the customer service we've been receiving. DM me if you'd like further info. As I'm still negotiating I don't think it is fair to publishing the nitty gritty as yet.

Hi Marisa, we haven't used Iron Lady because we are shipping a 4WD land cruiser completely kitted out for overlanding so "worth" becomes relative. In fact, PSS's local Sydney partner Palmers Relocations seem really helpful and on the ball - they have an agent to do the pink slip/blue slip engineer checks for our modifications - up to the point of registering it.

Most people have a home to move to but we don't so long-term storage becomes the burning issue. Although we have a house full of stuff in the UK we need to move to a capital city in Oz to work but we don't want to buy there. The net result is some Air BnB living and then find a unit/flat to rent depending how the job hunt goes. If work doesn't work out we plan to go travelling so even more need to keep stuff in storage. I'm interested in any experience in using long-term storage in Australia. Did you break your possessions into long-term and short-term storage so you can have access to the latter - although you end up having to pay for two lots of storage? What did you do for insurance - I've spoken to Letton Percival and their policy is a marine policy so they aren't geared up for long-term storage in Oz. PSS and I'm sure other removal companies will offer insurance for long-term but it is expensive. I'd really appreciate any insight people have on how they managed long-term storage because there is a natural assumption that everyone has an address to arrive at, so information is lacking a bit about people putting their possessions away.

Jez, not much help but I shipped my small collection some years ago and the other way. All arrived fine. I had plastic sleeves and stored them vertically. Insurance was nothing special because the records were not rare/collectable. I'm getting rid of them now as I'm about to move back to Oz and my UK import albums should not be re-imported

I know this won't be a surprise to many on the forum but Britannia, PSS and Pickfords all are fine mixing car shipping with household shipping. In my various searches, I found a good company for car shipping http://www.farandwidelimited.co.uk contact is Tom Steel. We didn't go with them in the end but he was really helpful and responsive. I know another person who used them and had a good experience. As with all of the companies, much depends on their local partner on the ground. Karman Shipping was also highly recommended but the owner told me he was retiring imminently. That said he has great information on his website.

Thanks ArrowsEng. I can't message yet as too new but how did you find the asbestos issue? Banned in 1999 in the UK our 4WD is 1994 though but we've replaced the brakes/auto box gaskets/ and a lot of gaskets in routine servicing so we think the risk is remote - however it doesn't stop ABF requesting an asbestos check if they wanted to. According to ABF site a letter from a mechanic is not enough. Sorry - a bit off topic.

Thanks Marisawright. Is it safe to assume PSS and the usual removalists also offer car services - it says so on the site so I'm assuming so but I've not seen anyone post here saying they shipped a mix of car and personal possessions so it made me wonder. ArrowsEng can you recall the name of the company you used? Guessing you didn't do the 3 cars via Personal Import [unless you owned all three for longer than 12 months]?

It's frustrating roomummy as we can't be the first to ship cars with belongings. I've tried two Aussie car importers who have said "cars only". You may have some luck with Dazmac who seem to have trailers as one of the things they import.

First post of many I'm sure! I'm an Aussie [dual] who has spent most of my working life in the UK. My British wife [permanent resident for Oz] and I have made the decision to head back to Australia and see where life takes us - sometime before March. I've been an avid lurker on the forum for a while and I have found a couple of questions peculiar to our circumstances, that I'm sure others may have tackled. Firstly, we have no idea where our plans will take us yet and where we'll be living in Australia - beyond using Air BnB initially and taking it from there. The question I have is if we put our household possessions in long-term storage in the UK [any recommendations?] and ship them out to us, say, in a year's time, do you run the risk of paying extra import/customs/taxes because the Aussie authorities don't recognise that they are your household effects? I'm sure they are used to most people moving and shipping at the same time. Secondly, I've read a lot of the removal threads with interest and it seems that people either engage a removalist for a full service door-to-door or sending their vehicles separately as they are rarely mentioned together in the same thread. I've also seen the excellent posts from @Iron Chef but I'm wondering if people haven't used a broker and still managed to get a vehicle in, particularly if you have had mixed belongings too. Many of the specialist car shippers in the UK seem to have local Aussie partners. We're shipping a 4WD that will take up a 20ft container with room for nothing else so that has made us reconsider a 40ft container to get some stuff in. We feel that storing our furniture in the UK will be environmentally safer than Australia initially [I used to have to pack books with camphor in Oz] and this is leading us to go round and round in circles a little bit. Thanks for any advice.