Step 2 PAGURO EASY EXPATRIATION GUIDE - Minus 5 weeks

Shipment

Arrange with at least three different moving companies to visit your home and obtain quotes from them. Select your mover and meet him/her representative to discuss dates, costs and methods of payment

• Do not overlook the terms of the contract and the insurance policy for inspecting your belongings when they arrive and how to make claims if any damage or loss has occurred.
   
• Provide the moving company with your new phone number (if you have already arraged for one in the new location) and any phone number where you can be reached while in transit (either a friend's phone, old neighbors, a place of business or relatives with whom you'll be in contact).
   

Direct debit(s)

If you have any of these outstanding, ensure which property they refer to and adjust if necessary, keeping the company involved informed of any action you take.

If you are selling a house and moving to a place where the postal service is not completely efficient, try and make provision for final bills etc. You may be charged, face legal action or incur logistical problems receiving credits for over-payment on your part.

Make sure your passport and that of any family member is current, if not, this is the time to renew it. In fact, if you are not a citizen of the country you are leaving, renewing it from a consulate or embassy of your country may require some time.

• Check your visa status and make sure you will have it, if needed, by the time you leave.

Check any treatments you or members of your family are due for - it is often easier to carry on treatments  in a place with which you are familiar rather than having to deal with even more logistical pressures in a new and unfamiliar place.

• Any health checks, bi-annual, annual, mammograms etc. Again, these are easier in familiar surroundings.
• Any dental treatment that may be necessary is better dealt with prior to a move.

Ensure you have all the addresses and contacts of people you may want to contact during a move - you may think you know all your friends' house addresses and telephone numbers, but removed from your familiar surroundings, it is surprising how hard even simple tasks become, so the more organized you are with this sort of matters, the less stressful situations become when faced with other pressures.

Ensure provision of adequate funding into any account that you may be using more than usually during a period of transience.

• Ensure Provision of funding in new location. Your first month or two is always tight on funding due to deposits being paid out, registration for schools, entry to clubs etc. 
• Checking accounts take time to issue either cheque books or credit cards, so you may be heavily reliant on cash, which in turn can give security problems in some places.
• Wills should be updated, taking into account the change of ownership if appropriate and where possible. Even if you don't deal with the finer details, at least you should have made general provision for expected changes, so that if one of you should die, action can be taken as you intended it, rather than leaving anything in the hands of either government or country officials who neither know, nor are aware of your wishes.