This is it - the busiest week of the year for house moves

This is the busiest week of the year for house moves, with the single busiest day being Friday according to a consumer group.

Based on figures from the government’s English Housing Survey there were 625,000 owner occupier moves in England in 2016-2017 or approximately 1,700 moves per day. 

Amongst the months of the year, August is consistently the most popular and Friday is easily the most favoured day of the week. 

So on that basis, and by an analysis of 12 years of house moving patterns, the HomeOwners Alliance and the reallymoving firm have concluded that this coming Friday will be the year’s most hectic. 

“Delays can occur at any time but issues with transfers of funds are more likely to happen on a Friday when banks, conveyancers and removal firms are stretched to the limit as it’s the time when most housing deals tend to complete. On the last Friday of the month bank money transfers can get overloaded and it’s peak time for conveyancing fraud” explains HOA chief executive Paula Higgins.

Recently the HOA revealed that some 115,000 moves were delayed each year, with many of them down to sellers not vacating their homes on time or funds not being cleared on time.

The consumer group said one or other of these problems caused delays on the moving days for 19 per cent of people who bought their home between 2016 and 2018.

Some 25 per cent of those hit by the delays incurred additional costs of over £500 on average, with one in seven of them losing more than £1,000 in costs, including removal firms cancellation charges and hourly waiting charges, storage fees, hotel or accommodation costs and late completion charges.