Prepare your leave from The Netherlands

pack and leave Netherlands

In 3 weeks i will leave the Netherlands, i will go in a vacation and in September i will start a new life in UK. I was always a very calm, even lazy person but in this time of the economy we cannot be still and we need to pack and find work where it is and try to call that new place my Home.

I came with that atitude to The Netherlands but i just don´t want to fit here. I hope in the UK i feel more at Home.

Before leaving there are several things to take care of. There are contracts to cancel, moving companies to contact, new house to find etc. Here is a list of things i did (star preparing your leave at least 30 days before):

1) Cancel services of Internet, television, health insurance.  Just email or call and explain your situation , that you are leaving and they will take care of that , especially by phone, they will ask you the date and reason why and thats it. Even if you have a yearly contract, if you are leaving the Country, 90% of the cases the contract is cancelled .

2) Mobile phone service. In this case i had a contract and i could cancel it but instead i called my service and asked to change 5 days before i leave from contract to pay as you go, so i can keep my phone number till i have a chance to have a UK number.

3) Communicate your leave to the city hall. In my case i did it online on the link http://inwoners.apeldoorn.nl/inwoners/producten-en-diensten_14/product/emigratie-aangifte_697.html. You can do it by letter or in person. You have to do it at least with 5 days notice.

4) Car insurance, road tax. You can go to the RDW and cancel your car registration and send the car to the country you want or do like i did, since i am going to the Uk in September, i called the car insurance and asked them in July to send me a 3 month bill and then cancel the service, i also payed recently the road tax that comes 3 in 3 months, this gives me time to go to the Uk and change my registration there till end of October, when you do that automatically the one in the Netherlands is cancelled.

5) Cancel bank account. This is the last and it has to be done in the bank. It is very easy you just have to have the account with no euros.

6) Find a transport company. Ask for as many quotations as you can, i asked to UK companies, Netherlands, Others in Europe. The prices can change from , in my case €700 to €4300, this was the price differences i received, so send a lot of quotations. I had a small problem, i am leaving the Netherlands in the end of July, i am in vacations in August and start in September in UK, so where do i leave my stuff in  August, i have boxes, some furnisher , etc. You have 2 options, or you fins a transport company that also storages (+/- €100 for 20m3 /month), or storage yourself. In my case the transport companies that also storage were very expensive, the cheapest ones only do the transport. So i searched in my area for self storage facilities and there is always 2 or 3 in your area. Just rent a space (+/- 100 euros /month 20m3) and put your stuff there, some of  them also previde services like van ren, or even let you for free a van to move your stuff. Then is just having someone you trust to leave the key to give it to the driver.

7) Fins a new house in the UK. I start searching in the end of last month but every company said that i was looking to soon that i should do it end of this month. So i still do not have a house in UK. I will publish this adventure in the next post.

For know this is it, i am still here, but from 3 weeks from know i am gone. If i have more updates no my moving to the UK i will post it here.

See you on the next post,

Sérgio