15
Years in international removals
850k+
Verified customer enquiries
3
FIDI-accredited partners
Trusted International Moving Network
Accredited Relocation Specialists
No appointment matters more in overseas removals than the survey, and none gets less preparation. A surveyor spends around an hour walking your rooms, and what they record decides the volume, the crew size, the vehicle, the container format and the price. Get that hour right and the quote holds. Get it wrong and everything downstream is wrong with it.
Dorchester is the county town and the seat of Dorset Council at County Hall, with the Poundbury extension on its western edge. We arrange international moves only; a move to another Dorset address is domestic work for a local firm.
Movers and packers who survey properly notice things you have stopped seeing. The wardrobe that will not clear the landing. The loft hatch too narrow for boxed items. The lane that floods.
None of that appears on a form. It appears when somebody walks the house, which is the whole argument for a physical survey over a phone call.
Volume in cubic metres, and access. That is the whole job. Volume sets the container format and the freight cost. Access sets the crew size, the vehicle and the hours. Between them they produce every figure you will later compare against another company's.
They are also recording exceptions as they go: what needs dismantling, what will not fit down the stairs, what needs a purpose built crate instead of wrapping, and anything restricted that needs documentation to leave the country. Each becomes its own line on the quote. None of it disappears into the volume. International movers and packers price crating separately for the same reason.
What they are not doing is valuing your possessions. Declared value for transit cover is yours to state, and a surveyor will not guess it for you. Have a figure in mind before they arrive, and a written valuation for anything genuinely valuable.
We probably will not take that. Said about a wardrobe, a shed full of tools or half a loft, and then reversed a month later. The volume is booked against what was surveyed. If it changes, say so immediately and ask for the quote to be reissued.
A modern house on a Poundbury or estate street, straightforward access, nothing unusual in the contents. A video call walked room by room produces an accurate volume, it happens inside days, not weeks, and it costs the company less, which is sometimes reflected in the price.
Do it properly. Walk slowly, open cupboards, go into the loft with the camera and go outside to show the approach and where a vehicle could stand. A rushed video survey is worse than no survey because it produces a number everybody then trusts.
Period property in the centre of Dorchester with narrow doors and awkward stairs. Anything with a piano, a safe or genuinely valuable pieces. A large house where the volume is near a container threshold and being wrong by three cubic metres changes the format.
Also any property where the last hundred metres is the question. A camera cannot tell a surveyor whether a lorry can turn at the end of your lane. A person standing in it can.
Not in detail, but in principle. A surveyor picking his way round undecided piles gives you a range. You want a figure. Whole rooms staying behind? Say so at the door. Not as they walk into each one.
Country and city at minimum, and the delivery property if you have it. Which floor, whether there is a lift, whether a large vehicle can reach it. Almost nobody provides this and it causes as many problems as the origin end does.
A car, a piano, a safe, garden machinery, anything containing ivory or restricted timber, and any wine. Each changes the plan, needs its own paperwork, and cannot be added on packing day.
Destination country, target month and your address. One international removals company from the network surveys properly and quotes from what it measured, instead of scattering your details across the market. Free of charge, with nothing owed either way.
A stated volume in cubic metres, so you can see what the figure rests on. Whether it is door to door or door to port, because door to port stops at the destination terminal and hands clearance back to you.
The exclusions written out, not the inclusions. The insurance basis, all risks or named perils, with the excess explained. And a named contact who will still be your contact in eight weeks.
A quote missing any of those is not necessarily bad, but it is not comparable with one that has them. Judging incomparable figures on price alone is how households end up with the wrong company, and international moving companies word their scopes very differently.
Volume is counted piece by piece. A surveyor walks each room noting wardrobes, beds, tables, sideboards and sofas, and the running total in cubic metres is what your quote rests on.
They also mark which furniture needs dismantling. A four poster bed, a modular sofa or a fitted desk each adds labour that sits outside the volume figure, and each appears as its own line if the survey was done properly.
Say which furniture is staying. Furniture you intend to sell should be pointed out at the survey, because a piece measured and then withdrawn changes the total, and a piece withdrawn and then reinstated changes it back. Both cost you a requote.
Ones that survey at all. A search for international removal companies near me returns plenty who will quote from a phone call, and that number is a guess dressed as a price. An international removals company that measures and then stands behind the figure is a different proposition. An international removal company that surveys is worth more than three that do not.
For a household international move, normally not. It is part of quoting. If a company wants to charge for one, ask what happens to that fee if you book, and compare with firms that do not.
Yes, along with Broadmayne, Martinstown, Piddlehinton, Cerne Abbas and the villages along the Frome and Piddle valleys. Weymouth, Bridport and Blandford Forum have their own pages, and anything between them is collected as the nearest job.
Weeks, usually. Not months, because freight rates and capacity keep shifting. Ask for the expiry date in writing. One more argument for surveying once you hold a real date, not a vague intention. Overseas movers reissue an expired figure. They will not extend one.
Dorchester is the administrative seat of Dorset Council at County Hall, and Poundbury is an urban extension on the western edge of the town. Survey practice, volume measurement and quotation structure follow standard international moving industry usage. Accurate as at September 2026 and reviewed annually. Each company sets its own survey and quotation terms, so confirm them before booking. Read our Google reviews.
Destination country, target month and your address. An accredited international moving company surveys the volume and the access, then quotes from both.
Send your move detailsInternational Removals Companies matches your enquiry with one accredited moving company from the AGM Group network that surveys before it quotes. Free to use, and we measure nothing ourselves.
Nearby: Weymouth, Bridport, Blandford Forum, Dorset.