After retirement, Anna and her husband, Gerard, decided to downsize and move to Mansfield where they would be closer to Anna’s mother and sister. They had even bought a beautiful home in Spain where they would visit from time to time for a relaxing break in between everyday life. Gerard would even enjoy a couple of rounds of golf whilst soaking up the sun. However, when their daughter fell pregnant and a new baby came along, an unexpected chain of events started to unfold.
As her daughter was living in Bingham, Anna had to make the forty-mile journey there and back every day to help look after her new grandchild, Jacob. “I ended up travelling from Mansfield every day to Bingham, where she lives,” Anna explained. “I was leaving home at seven o’clock in the morning and not getting home until seven or eight o’clock at night. So, my new house at Mansfield, I was never actually in it oddly.”
After selling the now barely-used home in Spain, the couple decided to make the move closer to Bingham. “We didn’t particularly want to move,” Anna told us. “It was just to make life easier for me because I was always travelling and not spending much time at home. So, we put the house up for sale and we had a buyer straight away.” Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be quite that simple.
With problems throughout the property chain and an issue with Land Registry, Anna and Gerard lost the house they had been interested in and, in turn, lost the buyer interested in their Mansfield home. It caused an array of added expenses and lengthened their search. “We were ready to go because, you know, it had gone a few weeks and we were all boxed up, ready to go,” Anna recalled. “So, we left it on the market and we lived with our boxes for the time being.”
It took almost a year until they eventually found another potential buyer. But, again, it wouldn’t be such a straightforward process. “We had a buyer, but we had nowhere to live,” Anna laughed. “So then, we started looking [for a house] again and we found a really gorgeous one. We offered the asking price but he decided to rent it out instead.” With the potential buyer waiting for their old home to become available, the clock was ticking on the transaction.
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Finally, after more house-hunting, there was a glimmer of hope. “So then, we found out that the house we were going to buy was back on the market! Because, obviously, we caused them to fall through, but then they found a buyer,” Anna told us. “But then something happened with his buyer’s work...So, almost a year later, we ended up buying the same house that we were going to buy.”
After such a long search, Anna and her husband would take the plunge in February 2019 and finally make the move to be closer to their daughter and grandchild. “We eventually got there,” Anna said. “So then, of course, you’re boxing up again and you’re trying to find out who you’re going to have move you. So we went online and I just found the comparison site.”
Anna explained that they did have some reservations with finding a company as the previous one they had used years ago, weren’t exactly helpful on their moving day. “The people we’d had when we moved to Mansfield from Buxton, they were a big, well-known company and I can’t say I was very impressed with them.”
Anna had told us that, not only were they not supplied with packing materials, but she even caught the movers dragging their £3,500 table across the floor! “Then we had an issue with the settee, which they broke. And so much for their insurance, because it ended up that we just had to have it repaired. So I wasn’t happy at all with those really.”
Due to the past move being such a disaster, it helped to have a single service like Compare My Move to show the couple a range of verified and fully-insured moving companies. Compare My Move has helped thousands of movers across the country find the right professionals for the job. Every partner within our network, whether it’s for surveying, conveyancing or removals, are all put through our strict verification process to ensure they can work to our high standards.
After adding a few simple details to our online form, Anna and her husband soon had a number of options to consider. “I think we were supplied with the details of four [removal companies], but only three got in touch. And of the three, believe it or not, the one we chose was actually the cheapest!” After scrutinising the reviews, the couple decided that Doree Bonner International was the right company for them.
Doree Bonner International has been a Compare My Move partner since 2014, accumulating an impressive five-star rating with our users. As one of the larger companies in the network, they have over a century’s worth of experience in the removals industry and have helped thousands of UK movers get to their new homes.
“It was very obvious that they were a team and they enjoyed doing what they were doing...if it wasn’t for me doing that completing day form, we could never have found this company because I’ve never heard of them!”
“So, we did a bit of research, we looked at reviews and all that sort of thing. Then we bit the bullet and said, right, let’s do it!” And with that, the couple’s moving day was finally in the works.
“There were three guys and it was absolutely wonderful. They turned up at eight o’clock in the morning, just got on with it, got all loaded up and everything,” Anna recalled. “The moving day went like clockwork because the guys with Doree Bonner International did a fabulous job, the day was only spoiled by the disappointing state the kitchen had been left in.” As with the rest of their moving experience, something just had to go wrong for Anna and Gerard.
The Doree Bonner team were professional, helpful and polite, treating the couple’s belongings with absolute care. Unfortunately, the previous owners weren’t so considerate. “When we got the keys and moved into this one, I nearly died. The kitchen was disgusting.” From dirty cupboards still loaded with food to a grease-covered oven, Anna and her husband were horrified by the mess left behind.
Luckily, the movers were very accommodating and waited for the couple to get the kitchen all cleaned up before moving their furniture. “The guys were great. I said, `Can you hold on with the table because I want to clean the floor before it gets put in situ?’ Because once it’s down you can’t really move it...and so they just got on with everything else. I don’t think they left until seven o’clock at night,” Anna told us. “I haven’t got one bad word for them. They were brilliant...I’d want them next time if I actually move.”
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Anna and her husband now live in a beautiful, detached new build that is much closer to Jacob and his mother. “Oh, we love it! It’s a four-bed detached, we only use two of the bedrooms,” she explained. “We’re opposite to Cotgrave Country Park. So when I fetch my grandson...when he finishes school, we take him cycling in the park. It’s really nice.”
With a new grandchild and a very unexpected house move, the couple’s lives have greatly changed since retirement. “It’s an immense change because the idea was when we retired, we were going to go to Spain so Gerard could golf. We could just lie in the sun. That didn’t happen really.” But as they say, everything happens for a reason. “But I love [Jacob] to bits and I’d do anything for him.”
When asked if she was pleased with her house move, Anna replied, “We definitely made the right choice of which removals company to use.” She continued, “They were just great. Which is not very often I can say that with all honesty, that you’ve got something 100%. They sort of went the extra mile. They didn’t have to stay as long as they did, they covered everything.”
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