Moving House in Delhi NCR: The Week Before and the Week After

Two weeks out: the permissions nobody thinks about

You are dealing with two societies on moving day, and both can stop you. Get their rules before you fix a date, not after.

Ask each society office, the one you are leaving and the one you are joining:

• On which days and between which hours is shifting permitted? Many buildings bar shifting on Sundays and festival days, and most restrict it to daytime hours. A move that must finish by a certain time changes how you pack.
• Which lift may be used, and must it be booked? The service lift usually, often with protective covering fitted, and sometimes reserved in advance in a register.
• Is a refundable amount or a written undertaking required? Many buildings ask for one before allowing a shifting. Find out the process, and allow time for it.
• What are the rules on packing material and waste? Cartons, sheets and thermocol have to leave the building, and leaving a pile in the lobby is the fastest way to a complaint.
• What entry do the movers need? Vehicle entry, parking for the van, worker ID at the gate. Ask what has to be submitted in advance.

Then confirm the date with both societies in writing. A message to each office naming the date and expected hours takes two minutes and prevents the single worst moving-day outcome, which is a loaded van and a gate that will not open.

The week before: what to sort, dismantle and disconnect

The week before is about reducing what has to happen on the day itself. Everything you decide in advance is a decision that is not being made in a stairwell with four men waiting.

• Decide what is not coming, early. The cheapest thing you will ever move is the thing you do not move. Give away, sell or dispose of it in the first days of the week, while there is still time for someone to collect it.
• Measure the awkward pieces against the new flat’s doors, lift and staircase. A wardrobe, a large bed, a fridge, a big sofa. Measure the item, then the narrowest point on its route. This one step prevents the classic moving-day disaster of a piece that goes down but will not go up.
• Book a carpenter for the dismantling if anything was assembled in place. Modular wardrobes, bed frames with storage, fixed shelving and beds built inside the room usually need dismantling to leave and reassembling to arrive. This is skilled work — forcing a joint that was glued is how furniture gets destroyed on moving day. A day-rate carpenter who dismantles at one end and reassembles at the other is often the calmer arrangement; our carpenter day rate guide covers when a day rate makes sense.
• Arrange the AC uninstall and reinstall properly. Removing and refitting a split AC is a technician’s job, not a mover’s, and it needs to be scheduled at both ends. Our AC shifting guide explains what the job involves.
• Deal with utilities and services. Note the final electricity, water and gas meter readings, arrange transfers or closures, and update your address with anything that matters. Photograph every meter on the day you leave.
• Pack a box you will open first. Bedding, towels, chargers, basic tools, a torch, tea and cups, medicines, bathroom essentials, cleaning cloths. Mark it clearly and put it in the van last so it comes out first.
• Label boxes by room in the new flat, not the old one. Obvious once said, and almost nobody does it. It is the difference between the movers placing boxes correctly and you moving them all again yourself.

Moving day: the four things that actually matter

On the day, most of it takes care of itself if the week before went well. Concentrate on four things.

• Protect the route, at both ends. Corridors, lift interiors, door frames and floors. Damage to a common area is a dispute with a society, and damage to a floor you are leaving is a deduction from a deposit. A few sheets of cardboard is a small price.
• Photograph the old flat empty, before you lock it. Every room, the bathrooms, the kitchen, the balcony, and all meter readings. This is the single most valuable ten minutes of the entire move if a deposit is involved — our security deposit checklist covers exactly what to capture.
• Photograph the new flat empty, before anything comes in. Same discipline, opposite purpose: a record of the condition you received it in.
• Keep valuables and documents with you, not in the van. Papers, jewellery, laptops, keys and medicines travel with a person, not with the load.

One more small thing that saves an evening: before the van leaves the old flat, walk it once with a torch — every cupboard, the loft, behind every door, the balcony, the geyser cupboard, the meter box. Things get left in exactly those places.

The first two days in the new flat

The temptation is to unpack everything immediately. A better use of the first forty-eight hours is to make the flat safe and functional, then unpack.

• Change or rekey the locks. You do not know how many keys to your new flat exist, and nobody can tell you reliably. This is the first job, not a later one — our door lock replacement guide covers the options.
• Find the stop valve and the distribution board. In daylight, calmly, while nothing is wrong. Turn each stop valve to check it actually moves. A seized valve found now is a small job; found during a burst at night it is an emergency.
• Test everything before you place furniture. Every socket, switch, fan, light, tap hot and cold, every flush and drain, the geyser and the exhaust fans. Anything faulty is far easier to raise on day one than in month two.
• Get the beds reassembled first. Whatever else is unfinished, sleeping properly on night one changes the whole week.
• Check the water. Ask when the tank was last cleaned, and whether supply is piped, borewell, tanker or a mix, and at what hours. Our water supply and tank tips cover what to check as a new resident.

Our tip on moving into a new flat is the short first-week list for a tenant, and it pairs directly with this section.

The week after: batch the small jobs into one visit

Every move generates the same cloud of small jobs, and the expensive mistake is calling someone out each time one occurs to you. Most of what you pay on a small job is the visit, not the work.

Keep a running list on the fridge for a week, then book once per trade. The usual list after a Delhi move looks like this:

• Carpenter: reassembling dismantled furniture, curtain rods, wall shelves, TV mount, adjusting doors and drawers that have shifted, fixing a wobbling wardrobe, replacing a damaged runner. Our curtains, blinds and furniture assembly guide covers this cluster of jobs, which is almost always cheaper booked together.
• Electrician: extra sockets where you actually need them now that the furniture is placed, fan installation, light fittings, a geyser point, anything that did not work on the day-one test.
• Plumber: a dripping tap, a slow drain, a washing machine connection, a stop valve that would not turn.
• Cleaning: if the flat was not cleaned before you moved in, the moment has passed for the easy version — but the kitchen and bathrooms are still worth doing properly.
• Pest check: worth doing early, before your food and boxes are all unpacked and settled.

Batching turns a fortnight of call-outs into two or three visits. Our tip on saving money on home repairs explains why that works, and our who to call for home repairs guide helps you sort the list by trade so nobody arrives for the wrong job. On XpertWorker you can request free quotes from independent, ID-verified professionals and compare them — we do not set anyone’s price and we never charge you, and you deal and pay the professional directly.