Work out what your real window is
Not what the booking says — what is actually true. The window opens when the last guests are physically out, which is frequently later than checkout, and it closes when the cleaners need the property, which is earlier than the next check-in.
The usable gap in the middle is smaller than the calendar suggests, and it is the number everything else has to fit inside.
Decide the three destinations before the van arrives
Everything leaving a let is going to one of three places, and they are not interchangeable:
- Storage — it is coming back, or going to another property.
- Back to you — it was always yours and should not have been in a let.
- Gone — disposal or donation, with the waste paperwork that goes with it.
Why that matters more than it sounds
Because it determines the order things are loaded, and a van loaded in the wrong order has to be unloaded twice. Sorting it at the property takes a few extra minutes. Sorting it in a van takes a great deal longer and it happens in the middle of your window.
Furnish in the order the property fills
Beds and wardrobes go in before sofas, because they go upstairs and the stairs are the constraint. Soft furnishings and small items go last, because they can be carried past anything.
The single most common error is a sofa arriving first and standing in the hall while everything else is carried around it.
Leave it photographable
A let is judged on its pictures. That means no packaging, no offcuts, no flat-pack waste and nothing propped against a wall "for now". We take our own packaging away for exactly this reason, and it is worth insisting on from anybody you use.
If it will not fit, say so early
A rushed changeover produces marked walls, a bad clean and a review that outlives the saving. Blocking a night out of the calendar is a real cost and it is almost always the smaller one.
Any remover who tells you a full refurnish will definitely fit a standard changeover, without having seen the property, is guessing.