Avoiding Accessorial Service Charges From Apartment and Home Movers

When you’re dealing with home movers, accessorial service charges can be a big deal. These extra costs can ramp up the final charge from local home movers or other moving and storage companies to where customers feel taken advantage of. Take some general steps to anticipate and provide for accessorial services and avoid a lot of heavy extra service fees from your moving company.

What are Accessorial Service Charges?

These kinds of charges and fees can be for anything from packing and unpacking to lifting/carrying heavy items, dealing with appliances, getting spatial access and much more. All of these factors have to be considered before moving day if you want to avoid being vulnerable to a lot of additional service charges.

Space Access Issues

One way to avoid some types of accessorial service charges is to make sure that your movers have a clear path. You may have to ask specifically about vehicle access to make sure they can get to your old location to pick up items. If the truck can’t access the space, they may charge you extra. The same is true for flights of stairs, so check out options like cargo elevators or other ways to get goods from your original home into the truck. All of this also applies to your destination.

Research Weight Issues

Many accessorial service charges involve high weights for individual pieces of furniture or other items. Above a certain weight threshold, a moving company may charge more. You can get these policies from the company well before moving day and anticipate them by knowing how much your items weigh. This way, you are not liable to increased charges involving heavy duty lifting and carrying.

Appliances and Fixed Items

Some moving companies also end up charging accessorial service charges for unhooking or installing appliances for customers. This is another situation where you want to be ready for the movers on moving day. If you can prepare all of your items to be easily conveyed into the truck, you should not be liable for those extra fees. On the other hand, any complications that cause delay can trigger additional service charges.

General  Provisions for Affordable Moving

Well before moving day, you will want to get a binding or non-binding estimate from a moving company about the total cost. At this time, you can request a breakdown of additional service policies so that you can start going through the checklist. Make sure that none of your items will be subject to these rules and that nothing about your moving situation will trigger the extra charges that you want to avoid. Talk directly with qualified and authorized moving company representatives to work out a plan that will be easy on your wallet when the day comes. As with many other similar services, communication and staying involved throughout the process is important. Customers who are most likely to pay through the roof for moving are the ones who assume that somebody else will take care of the details, so stay engaged in the moving process and protect your bottom line.