Storage during a move: when your mover keeps your things, and when it stops being responsible

Plenty of moves need a gap: a closing date that slips, a lease that starts later than the old one ends. How your belongings are stored in that gap decides who is responsible for them, and it changes partway through.

Storage-in-transit

You can ask your mover to store your shipment before delivering it. That storage is part of the move, and the mover stays responsible for your goods while it lasts. The longest it can last, and what it costs, are set in the mover's tariff, so ask for both before you agree.

Permanent storage

After the conversion your belongings sit in the warehouse under its rules and its charges, and the mover is no longer responsible for them. Ask what getting them out and delivered would then cost, and put the conversion date in your calendar the day you agree to storage.

If the truck arrives early

A mover that turns up before your delivery window can only deliver early if you can take it.

Storage-in-transit or your own storage unit

• Storage-in-transit keeps the mover responsible for your goods from pickup until the conversion date.
• A storage unit you rent yourself is yours to manage: you pay it, you insure it, and getting things out of it later is a separate pickup, priced as a service on the estimate.
• Either way, check what the storage costs per month and what moving things in and out costs, before you sign.

Containers you load yourself

Portable containers and trailers that you load and unload yourself are a different kind of service. The federal consumer rules for household goods movers, the ones requiring written estimates, arbitration and the 110 percent limit, are written for companies that load and move your belongings.