When Your Removal Firm Damages Your Property: Your Legal Position in the UK
Removal disputes are among the more common consumer complaints and among the least well understood. The core problem is that most people assume their goods are insured to full value during a move. In the majority of cases they are not.
Here is where you actually stand.
The starting position: liability is limited by contract
Removal firms operate under terms and conditions that almost universally cap liability per item. The industry standard, used by British Association of Removers members, limits liability to £40 per item unless you take out additional cover.
Forty pounds. Per item. Regardless of whether the item is a laptop or a lamp.
This is not a scandal — it is a standard limitation-of-liability clause of the sort found across logistics — but it is a term that a great many customers sign without reading, and it becomes relevant only after something has been broken.
Is the limitation enforceable?
Usually, but not always.
Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a term in a consumer contract is unenforceable if it is unfair, meaning it creates a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights contrary to good faith. A liability cap is not automatically unfair, but it can be if:
- it was not brought to your attention before contracting
- it was buried in terms you were not given a reasonable opportunity to read
- it purports to exclude liability for death, personal injury, or breach of the statutory duty to perform with reasonable care and skill
That last point matters. Section 49 of the Act implies a term that a service will be performed with reasonable care and skill, and section 57 restricts the ability to exclude liability for breach of it. A firm cannot contract out of basic competence.
The practical distinction courts tend to draw is between damage occurring despite reasonable care and damage occurring because of the absence of it. A vase that breaks despite proper packing is one thing. A wardrobe dragged across a floor is another.
Goods in transit vs. your own contents insurance
Two different things, and the gap between them is where most claims fail.
Goods in transit cover is the removal firm’s insurance. It covers loss or damage while the goods are in their custody, subject to the terms and the per-item cap.
Your home contents insurance may extend to cover goods during a move — but frequently only if the move is carried out by a professional firm, and frequently with conditions about how items are packed. Self-packed boxes are commonly excluded, on the reasoning that the insurer cannot verify how they were packed.
Check both before the move. Specifically ask your own insurer whether cover extends to transit and what conditions apply.
Storage adds another layer
If your goods go into storage as part of the move — which is increasingly common, given how often completion dates slip — the liability position can change at the point of transfer from transit to storage.
Some firms treat these as a single contract with continuous cover. Others treat storage as a separate agreement with its own terms and its own, sometimes lower, limits. A few require you to insure stored goods separately.
This is worth clarifying in writing before the goods move. When a firm offers combined moving and storage services the question to ask is whether the goods-in-transit cover continues while the goods are held, or whether a separate storage policy applies and from what moment. The answer varies by operator and it is not a question anyone volunteers.
What to do if something is damaged
Photograph everything before the move. Condition of furniture, contents of rooms, existing marks on walls. This is the single most valuable thing you can do and it takes twenty minutes.
Inspect on delivery, before the crew leaves. Note damage on the delivery paperwork. Do not sign a clean receipt and complain later — you can still claim, but you have handed the other side an argument.
Report in writing within the contractual window. Most terms require notice within seven days. Some require three. Miss it and the claim is likely time-barred contractually even though the limitation period for a court claim is six years.
Get a repair or replacement quote. Claims without a costed figure go nowhere.
Escalation
If the firm rejects the claim:
BAR members are subject to the BAR’s Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme, administered independently. It is free to the consumer and the decision binds the member.
Non-members leave you with the small claims track of the County Court for anything under £10,000. Fees are modest, you do not need a solicitor, and the process is designed for litigants in person.
Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 gives you a claim against your card issuer for purchases between £100 and £30,000 made on a credit card. This is frequently the fastest route and it is very substantially underused.
The practical advice
Buy the additional cover. It typically costs a small percentage of the declared value and it converts a £40 cap into actual protection.
Use a firm that is a BAR member or equivalent, purely because it gives you an ADR route that costs nothing.
And read the storage clause specifically, because it is the one that changes silently and the one that applies when your completion slips by three weeks — which, statistically, it is quite likely to do.
