Sold your home before buying the new one: where to put the furniture

The short answer

You've sold your home and the new one isn't ready: put the furniture in storage with no fixed end date, because your move-in date can slip. With us storage continues month by month, and you ask for redelivery to the new address, even a different one from the pickup, when the house is really ready.

Our storage runs month by month precisely for people with a date they don't control: the building site, the deed, the surveyor who says "two weeks". Below you'll find how the gap between the two deeds is covered, what to do with the furniture meanwhile, and where storage like this isn't needed.

I don't own a home: I run a company that moves other people's. I know the face of someone stuck in the gap between two deeds, not the mortgage.

Five places for the furniture, and what each costs in nerves

Table first, explanations after. The last column is the one that counts: what happens if the date changes. Spoiler: it changes, and someone usually tells you "two weeks".

How to bridge the gap between the sale deed and the purchase deed

The problem sits upstream of the furniture: for a while you have no home of your own to put it in, which is quite the irony for someone who's just sold one. There are three ways through, and the first is decided before you sign.

The first is not leaving right away. The deed is signed and possession of the property passes at a later date written into the deed. NotaioFacile explains that in that case it's wise to write into the deed the date you vacate, a daily penalty for delay, and who pays utilities and building charges in the meantime. PrezziNotaio adds that a cheque can be left with the notary, cashable only once the keys are handed over. These are things to settle with the notary, not with a blog written by a guy who sells boxes.

The second applies when more time is needed. If the seller needs six months or a year to find a home, NotaioFacile says a free loan for use (a "comodato") can sit alongside the deed: a private agreement that justifies your staying in the home that is no longer yours. A comodato means being a guest in someone else's house, with the bonus of still getting your own bills.

If one of these two roads is open, the furniture stays where it is and you don't need storage. You move once, straight to the new home. The rest of this article is for when your deed is already signed with no clause at all.

If you have to leave now: a transitional lease, the in-laws and the six-month suitcase

Whoever leaves the sold home has two places to live: a rented apartment or a relative with a sofa. In the second case the furniture won't fit, and neither will the rest (after a month, sometimes, neither will the in-laws' patience); in the first it won't either, because an apartment taken for a few months often comes furnished.

For the rental there's the transitional contract, governed by article 5 of Italian law 431/1998: it lasts up to 18 months, can't be renewed and needs a declared, documented transitional need. Without it, the contract risks being treated as an ordinary lease. The same page lists moving from one home to another among the valid needs. How to word it is for whoever drafts the contract, not me.

The 18-month cap tells you how long, at most, the gap covered by a rental can run. The new house, by its nature, feels free to ignore it.

Fixed-term storage asks you for a date you don't have

Whoever ends up here usually has a date. They wrote it on their heart, or on the preliminary contract, or in the builder's promise. Then the site decides to take a break, the surveyor says "two weeks", and the date goes back to being an idea.

With fixed-term storage you need to know the date at the start: three months, six, twelve. If you pick three and need five, you renew and hope the price doesn't change. If you pick six and need two, whether you pay anyway depends on the contract, but it's something to ask before signing, not after.

This is no criticism of fixed-term storage: for people who really have the date it's perfect. The trouble is choosing a term when the only certain thing is that nothing is.

For people in limbo there's another model: storage with no end written at the start, which carries on until you ask to close it. That's what we do, and it's partly why we built it that way: not out of genius, but because we're as bad at guessing dates as you are. For the wider comparison with a traditional unit, see the post Smoves or traditional self storage, and for prices the post on furniture storage costs.

Stay as long as you like, and ask for redelivery at the new address

Smoves long-term storage has no end date: it continues month by month until you ask for full redelivery from your account, with no cancellation charges. Whether the new home is ready in six weeks or eight months, only the number of monthly payments changes, not the contract.

You ask for redelivery when you need the home, and it can go to a different address from the pickup, within the area we serve. You pick up from the sold home, redeliver to the new one, and in between the furniture doesn't have to stop at a relative's garage. The double move comes off the bill: you're left with one, the real one.

You don't have to take everything back at once, either. If the new home is half ready, write to us with what you want back: the rest stays in storage and you take it later. Redelivery is paid when you book it. For furniture that has to be taken apart before pickup, there's dismantling and reassembly, separate and on a quote.

What's worth knowing about price is this: if you commit for more months (up to 36) the discount goes on the pickup, never on the rate. If you then close early, you repay the discount you had, no more than that. It's the only point where a date matters, and it's up to you whether to commit or stay free. The rate is the same with or without a commitment: only the pickup price changes.

One detail some people find out late: the warehouse can't be visited. It's indoors, dry and access-controlled, and you see your things again when we redeliver them. If you need the good dinner service back for Christmas lunch, ask ahead.

What to do in the days before pickup

This is real work, and it's yours. So you forget nothing between the deed, the keys, the utility transfers and the change of residence, I've left you the moving checklist: download it below, print it and tick it off in pen.

1. Estimate the space with the calculator or the size guide: the calculator gives you the size, and at the warehouse we measure the space you really take up.

2. Take apart what comes apart, or get the dismantling quoted together with the pickup.

3. Label the boxes by room of the new home, not of the sold one: you'll find them sorted by where they're going, not by where they sat in a house that now belongs to someone else.

4. Keep within reach what you need meanwhile: seasonal clothes, documents, and the phone charger, always the last thing into a box and the first thing you miss.

5. On pickup day it has to be you or someone you've delegated. Put the old home's keys somewhere that isn't "inside a box".