Hi there all! My husband and I are relocating back to PHP and are looking to ship the entire contents of our two bedroom house. I have been quoted around 5000 pounds to do so for a door to door to service from Harrogate North Yorkshire to Cavite area. Does this sound unreasonable? Anyone have suggestions of a good removal company? Or some way we can get this cheaper as it seems somewhat expensive to my husband & I. Many thanks in advance for your advice. Denise A Cosino
To me that sounds very reasonable for a container, I'm assuming insurance is included in the quote? I used to be involved with a company that shipped machinery worldwide a few years back and I know then they worked on the basis of a container shipment costing 6 - £8k I'd be using a British company and not a Philippine one if I was in your shoes, no disrespect to Philippine companies of course
£5,000 is on the cheap side but you will have to make provision for Customs Duties and taxes which will be an expensive extra. I frankly wouldn't bother.
my entire house contents aint worth 5 grand--but it would cost more than that to replace new.. most of it is less than 5 years old.
Yes. Lazy Customs assessors will "value" everything "as new" and charge duty and VAT accordingly. Some items will attract more in taxes and duties than their actual value. And there could well be pilerfage between the ship's side and home. Cavite isn't far from the good malls of Makati where Debenhams can supply all your household linens, kitchenware and dinnerware; SM Appliance Center for TVs and electrical goods (white and non-white goods), and so on.
We emigrated out to the Philippines a few years ago (we returned to the uk 18 months later) and my initial idea was to pack all of our stuff into a 20ft container or get a part share of a 40ft container. In the end I didn't bother. A container will take about 6 weeks door to door if you're going to be in Manila and probably a good deal longer than that if you're a distance away, baring any delays at either end due to customs etc. We packed up everything we wanted to take in balikbayon boxes and shipped them ahead. When we traveled I paid extra baggage allowance for our day to day stuff. Furniture and goods can be picked up at reasonable prices out there if you hunt around / take ex-display / end of line stuff which is what we did. We came back sooner than we intended and I'm glad we didn't take all of belongings out there as shipping stuff from the phils to the UK was a total nightmare, not to mention expensive. I'd look at what you really need and put the rest in storage in the uk if your going out there for a reasonable time period. If it permanent you can always sell it and use the cash to pay for business class upgrades. For the 5 grand you're looking at spending on a container you will probably spend half that buying new out there. One word of warning though is that TV's & stereos seems over expensive for the newest models.
