Moving to your first detached home is exciting. It’s adulting at its finest, and for some, a symbol that you’ve truly “arrived.” But moving into a detached home isn’t as easy as packing your stuff into a U-Haul and hitting the road; oh no. You’re adulting now, and you’ve got some other steps to take in order to make sure your new home is ready for you to move in.
Contact your utility providers and arrange to have services put into your name as of the day you take possession of the home.
It used to be that lawyers would perform this service for you, but that’s no longer the case. It falls to you as the new owner to contact the local utility providers and make sure you home has heat, water and electricity on the day you move in. If you’re moving from another owned home, make sure you do the opposite for your current services, and arrange to have them disconnected from your accounts as of midnight the day you move out.
Do a thorough inspection on moving day.
Walk around your new home and make sure that everything that the owners agreed would be left in the home remains. Mistakes happen, and if you don’t raise them immediately, you could be left footing the bill.
Along the same lines, you also want to make sure that all appliances are in the condition you agreed to, which likely means functioning. Test out all appliances, taps and toilets to make sure that everything is in good working order. Even if you’re on the hook for the repairs, it’s important to know what needs fixing as soon as you move in.
Set up mail forwarding, and change your address with all of your service providers.
Your postal service should offer mail forwarding for a fee, meaning that they will send all mail to your new address, even if it was sent to your old one. I recommend setting it up for a full year, because some communications are so infrequent that you may miss them if you only forward for three months.
Once you’ve got this set up, you need to begin the tedious process of contacting all of your service providers and updating the address on your account. This includes your banks, the government, your employer, telco providers, insurance providers, subscription services (especially that direct-to-door grocery service you’ve been relying on through this pandemic), and so on. Click here for a more thorough list. You don’t want any of this information going to your old address once you’ve moved out.
Prepare to change the locks on Day 1.
Whether you pay a locksmith or do it yourself, changing the locks on day 1 is a small expense that pays big dividends in terms of peace of mind. You never know who might have keys to the old locks that were on your house, and you can never play it too safe with your new castle. Make changing all exterior locks a priority, so that you know that your family is the only one with keys that get you into your new home.
Wrapping it Up
Moving is a lot of work and costs a lot of money. That’s why it’s best not to do it very often. When the time does come though, being prepared can help save you a lot of headache, and help you remember the event as the exciting page-turn in your life that it was meant to be. If you use the list in today’s post as a starting point for your planning, you’ll be well on your way to checking all the boxes as you settle into your new home!
