Concierge Buildings in London: Moving In and Out Without Problems

A concierge building looks like the easiest place in London to move. There is a desk, a person who knows the lift, a loading bay and someone to sign for parcels. In practice it is where moves are most often held up, not by the furniture but by the paperwork: a crew who cannot get past the desk because nobody told the concierge they were coming, a fob that was never handed back, a deposit kept because nobody photographed the corridor first.

This guide is about that side of the move: the house rules, the move pack, the people behind the desk, and the small pieces of admin that decide whether the day starts at 8am or at 9:15. It does not repeat how to book the goods lift, which has its own guide. It covers everything else the building will expect from you, as a leaseholder, a tenant or a new buyer, and what to send us so the crew arrives with the same information the desk has.

The concierge is the face of the building, but rarely the person who wrote the rules. In most London blocks the concierge is employed by, or contracted to, the company that manages the building. That company works for whoever owns or is responsible for the common parts: the corridors, lobbies, lifts, stairs, bin stores and car park. The concierge keeps the diary and enforces the rules on the day. The managing agent decides what the rules are, what the deposit is, and whether an exception can be made.

For high-rise buildings in England, the law now names that responsible party. GOV.UK says an accountable person is the organisation or individual who owns, or has a legal obligation to repair, the common parts of the building, such as the structure and exterior, corridors, lobbies and staircases. An accountable person can be a freeholder, a landlord, a management company, a resident management company, a right to manage company or a commonhold association. Where there is more than one, one of them is the principal accountable person.

GOV.UK also says accountable persons can employ a managing agent to carry out duties for them, but the accountability stays with them. And a management company that only works under a contract to maintain the building is not an accountable person. That matters on moving day for one practical reason: if you disagree with a rule or a charge, the managing agent is where to start, but the owner or accountable person is who it answers to.

The three people you may deal with

• The concierge or front desk. Holds the booking diary, the lift keys, the fob system and the visitor log. Your main contact on the day
• The managing agent or estate manager. Writes the move rules, sets any deposit or fee, approves exceptions, and handles complaints and refunds
• The owner or accountable person. Usually invisible, but responsible for the common parts and, in a high-rise building, for building safety

In smaller mansion blocks, the porter may also be the estate manager, and the rules may be a single page by the post boxes. In large new-build developments, there may be a separate estate team for the car park and a different one for each block. Ask at the desk who you should write to, and get a name and an email address rather than a general inbox.

Many managed buildings in London have a written set of rules for moves, sometimes called a move pack, a move-in guide, a removals policy or simply the relevant section of the residents' handbook. No law sets what goes in it, and two buildings on the same street can have very different rules. But the same subjects come up again and again, and they are the ones to look for when you read it.

• Move hours. The days and times moves are allowed. Some buildings allow none at weekends or on bank holidays
• Notice. How far ahead the move must be booked with the desk, and whether a form has to be returned
• The route. Which entrance, which lift and which corridors the crew may use. Some buildings keep the main lobby off limits for furniture
• Deposit or fee. Whether a refundable damage deposit or a non-refundable admin fee is charged, how much, and when it is returned
• Paperwork from the removal company. Most often an insurance certificate, sometimes the van details or the crew's names
• Protection. What the building fits and what the removal company must bring
• Parking and loading. Where the van may stop, any height barrier, and whether the car park is managed by a private company
• Waste and packaging. What can go in the bin store, and what must not be left there
• Keys and fobs. How access is handed over and returned

If the building has no written pack, ask the desk to put its answers in an email. A rule that only exists in the concierge's head can change at the shift handover, and the evening concierge may not know what the morning one agreed. Writing it down protects you and the person at the desk.

Ask for both packs, not just one. The building you are leaving and the building you are moving into will almost always have different rules, and the new one is easy to forget when you are busy packing. If you are buying, your conveyancer or the seller's agent can often get the new building's management details before completion; if you are renting, ask the letting agent.

The goods lift has its own list of questions. These are the other ones, the building-management questions that decide how smoothly the day runs. The third column is what to pass on to us, so the crew plans the day around your building's rules rather than discovering them at the door.

You do not need every answer before you book us, but you do need them before the day. If a building gives you a rule we have not seen before, send it anyway. A crew that knows the main lobby is off limits, or that the bay is barrier-controlled, plans the load differently from one that finds out on arrival.

Who has to deal with the building depends on how you hold the flat. GOV.UK says building safety duties apply to every resident over 16, whether a leaseholder, a social housing tenant or a private renter, and that your lease or rental agreement will usually cover most of the rules. So the starting point is the same document for everyone: the lease, or the tenancy agreement that sits under it.

If you own the leasehold

GOV.UK says your lease sets out the conditions you have agreed to, and that if you do not follow them you can be taken to court and ordered to pay for any damage. House rules about moves, lifts and common parts often sit under the lease, which is why the managing agent can enforce them. GOV.UK also says leaseholders have the right to know the freeholder's name and address and to get information about service charges, so if the building charges a move fee and you want to know where it comes from, you are entitled to ask. Deal with the managing agent directly; you are their client.

If you rent

As a tenant, you usually have no direct contract with the managing agent. Your landlord does. That means the building may only accept move bookings, deposits and fob requests from the flat's owner or the letting agent, not from you. Ask your letting agent early who should book the move with the building, and copy them into every email. It also helps at check-out, because the agent then knows the date the flat will be empty and can plan the inspection. Moving out of a rented flat has its own steps for notice and deposits, covered in moving out of a rented home in London.

If you are buying

When you buy a flat, the building does not know you until someone tells it. Ask your conveyancer for the managing agent's details and the building's move rules as soon as you have a completion date. On completion day itself, keys and fobs may be released through the estate agent rather than the concierge, and timings slip. Completion day removals in London covers how to plan around the key release.

Most moves that start late in a concierge building start late at the front door. The van arrives on time, but the desk has no record of the booking, the person who agreed it is off shift, or the fob that opens the service entrance is in a drawer upstairs. None of it takes long to fix. All of it takes paid time.

Our crews are our own: every mover is employed by AFS. We never pass your move to a subcontractor. That makes sign-in simple, because the people who arrive are the people we planned. If the building asks for the crew's names or the van's registration in advance, tell us when you book and the team will confirm what can be sent and when. Your one named coordinator is the contact the desk can call on the day if anything is unclear.

Getting the crew through the door

• Tell the desk the day before. Give the arrival time, the van size and the number of crew, and ask that it is written in the log for the next shift
• Be there when the crew arrives. If you cannot be, name someone who can, and tell the desk who it is
• Have the fob for the service entrance ready. Hand it to the crew lead, not to whoever happens to be holding the door
• Ask for the bay barrier or car park gate to be opened. If the van has to wait on the street while someone finds the remote, it may have nowhere legal to stop

Fobs and keys on move-out

Fobs are easy to lose in a move: one is in a coat pocket, one is in a kitchen drawer that is now packed, one is on a keyring that went in a box. Many buildings record how many fobs a flat has, and some charge for any that are not returned. Before packing starts, find every fob, key and parking permit for the flat, put them in one labelled envelope, and keep it with you, not in a box. On the day, hand them back to whoever the building or your landlord names, and get a receipt or an email saying what was returned.

Fobs and keys on move-in

At the new building, ask in advance who will hold your fobs on the day, and whether they will be working. A new fob may need activating on the system, and the person who can do that may not be on site at the weekend. If the crew cannot get through the service entrance, the whole load waits on the pavement or in the van.

Post rooms, parcels and the new address

Concierge buildings often hold parcels for residents at the desk or in a parcel room. That is convenient until the week of a move, when deliveries arrive for someone who has just left or for someone the desk has not yet heard of. A few small steps avoid it.

• Tell the desk at the old building your last day. Ask what happens to parcels that arrive after you leave, and stop online orders to the old address a week before
• Tell the desk at the new building your first day. Ask whether they will accept parcels for you before you arrive, and how long they keep them
• Arrange post redirection before you move. Do it early enough that it is running by your moving day
• Do not order furniture deliveries for moving day. A new sofa arriving while the crew are using the lift means two loads competing for one lift and one desk
• Update the address on your accounts in the week after the move, starting with banks and anything that sends post you must not miss

If you are buying, also check whether the post boxes in the lobby need a new key or a code, and who holds it. Mail locked in a box you cannot open is a common surprise in the first week.

Buildings worry about one thing more than any other on a moving day: damage to the lobby, the lift and the corridors. Scuffed walls, a dented lift panel or a scratched floor are the reasons deposits are kept and move fees exist. The answer is the same at both ends: protect the route, and keep a record.

Our quotation terms say the crew protects floors, doorways and common areas along the carrying route as part of the standard service. Any further protection a property needs, for example for delicate or newly laid surfaces, must be agreed in writing before the move. So if the building's pack asks for something specific, such as protection for a polished stone lobby or for the full length of a corridor, send it to us with your quote request and the team will confirm what is included and what needs agreeing.

The condition walk

If the building charges a deposit or carries out an inspection, ask for a walk-round with the concierge before the first item moves and another after the last one. Agree what is already damaged. Take your own dated photos and a short video of the route: the entrance, the lobby, the lift car inside and out, the corridor to your door, and the door frame itself. Do the same at the end. If the building later claims for a mark, you have a record of whether it was there in the morning.

If something is damaged

Report it to the desk straight away and tell the crew lead. Do not wait for the building to find it. Every move with us includes this cover:

• Goods in Transit cover. Included on every move, not sold as an add-on.
• Public Liability cover. In place on every job, at home or at work.

We send our insurance certificate to the building on request, and we do not publish cover amounts on the site, so the certificate is the document the building sees. If the building's pack asks for something particular on it, send us the wording when you book.

Moving day puts more pressure on fire safety rules than any other day in a block's year. Doors are heavy, the route is long, and wedging a door for ten minutes feels harmless. It is not, and buildings treat it seriously. The London Fire Brigade says that in a block of flats there are fire and smoke doors on the stairwells, the corridors and the flat front doors, and that they also protect areas where there is a risk of fire, such as bin storage and mains electricity cupboards. It says a fire door only works when it is closed, and is completely useless if it is wedged open or cannot close fully.

The brigade's advice for purpose-built flats adds that communal corridors and staircases must be kept free from clutter, including pushchairs, e-bikes, scooters and rubbish, because clutter can block escape routes, add fuel to a fire and delay firefighting. On a moving day, a stack of boxes in the corridor waiting for the lift is clutter in exactly that sense.

Your own front door is a fire door too

The London Fire Brigade says that if your flat's front door opens onto a common area, it needs to be a fire door, and that you should never carry out repairs or work on it. That rules out a common moving-day shortcut: taking the front door off its hinges to get a sofa through. If an item will not pass through the door, it is dismantled, not the door. Many sofas, beds and wardrobes come apart, and our crews dismantle and reassemble furniture with a removal.

Bin stores and packaging

The bin store is often behind a fire door of its own. It is not a place to leave flattened boxes, bubble wrap or a broken chair from the move. Ask the building what the bin store takes and how much, and plan for packaging to leave the building some other way if the store cannot take it. We do not take away household waste, so keep what you can reuse for the unpacking and check the building's rules for the rest before the day.

Service cupboards and risers

Riser cupboards, meter rooms and service corridors can look like useful places to park a few boxes. They are not. Many are behind fire doors and hold electrical equipment. Keep everything inside the flat, in the lift or in the van.

If the building is a high-rise in England, the Building Safety Act 2022 applies to it. GOV.UK defines a high-rise residential building as one with at least 7 storeys or at least 18 metres high, with at least 2 residential units, and says it must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator before people live there. A four-storey mansion block falls below it, but its lease and house rules still apply.

The duties that matter on moving day

GOV.UK says residents must not damage, remove or interfere with relevant safety items, such as fire doors, signs, sprinklers, smoke alarms or fire extinguishers, and must not do anything that increases or creates a risk of fire spreading or structural failure. It also says that you may be breaking the law if you do not behave responsibly. A move is not building work, but it is the day a fire door is most likely to be wedged, a sign knocked off a wall or an extinguisher moved to hold a door.

If the accountable person thinks a resident has broken those duties, GOV.UK says they can give a contravention notice: a legal document setting out the allegation, what to do to fix it, and how to challenge it. If the problem is damage to a safety item, the accountable person may ask you to pay for its repair or replacement, and the amount should not be more than the repair or replacement cost. If the notice is not followed, the accountable person can apply for a court order. That is the strongest reason to treat fire doors on a moving day as fixed, not as obstacles.

The safety information you are owed when you move in

It works both ways. GOV.UK says accountable persons must give residents information about building safety, including a summary of the latest fire risk assessment, how to report a building safety risk, the location of fire escape routes, fire doors and alarms, and the building's evacuation information. The principal accountable person must also give residents its name, phone number, email and postal address. They must provide the building's resident engagement strategy and details of the complaints system too.

GOV.UK adds that accountable persons must take all reasonable steps to know who lives in their part of the building and understand their needs, including access and communication needs. So when you move into a high-rise, tell the building you have arrived, and ask for its safety information if it does not arrive. Read the evacuation plan in your first week: the London Fire Brigade says your building's plan may tell you to stay put or to leave, and the two are very different.

If anyone in the household may need help to get out in a fire, for example because of limited mobility, sight or hearing loss, or a temporary condition, the London Fire Brigade suggests asking the landlord or housing officer about a Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan. Moving in is the natural moment to ask.

A concierge building often has its own loading bay, a basement car park or a private service road. That sounds like the end of the parking problem. It is not always. The building's own land is usually managed by the building or a private parking company, with its own rules, and the council's rules on the street outside are separate.

• Loading bays. Ask whether the bay must be booked, how long you can have it, and whether it has a height barrier. A Luton van will not fit under many basement barriers
• Managed car parks. Ask who manages it, whether the van needs a visitor permit or a registration entered on a system, and how long it can stay
• Shared service roads. Ask whether deliveries and bin collections use the same road at the time of your move
• The street outside. If there is no space on the building's land, the van needs a legal place on the street, which may mean a parking suspension. You apply and pay for that with the council

Our quotation terms ask you to make sure there is legal access for the vehicle at both properties and to tell us about any height, width, weight or road restrictions before booking. The building's height barrier is exactly that kind of restriction. If you tell us, we plan the van around it; if you do not, the crew may have to unload from the street.

If the van gets a ticket on private land

Tickets on private land are not council fines. GOV.UK says that for a ticket from a private company you should check who issued it and contact them to challenge it. If the challenge is rejected, you can appeal to POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) if the operator is a member of the British Parking Association, or to the Independent Appeals Service if it is a member of the International Parking Community. The building's written confirmation that the van was expected, with the time, is your best evidence, which is one more reason to get it in writing.

For the street outside, the rules depend on the borough. Moving day in a controlled parking zone and parking suspensions for moving day cover the council side.

The lift booking email in our goods lift guide asks for the lift. This one is different: it asks for the building's rules and puts the crew on the desk's radar. Send it to the managing agent with the concierge in copy two to three weeks before the move, then forward the reply to us.

Keep the reply in the same thread. If the building answers some questions and not others, reply and ask again, and send whatever you have to us. A gap in the answers is better known in advance than at the desk.

The order of the day matters as much as the timing. This is the sequence that works in most managed London blocks, from the evening before to the moment the crew leaves. The same steps apply in reverse on a move-out.

What waiting at the desk costs

Every minute the crew waits for a sign-in, a fob or a barrier is paid time. Our quotation terms charge overtime only where the job runs over because of things like waiting or access restrictions, and our rate card charges waiting at £40 per crew member per hour. The table shows what that means for the crew our quote form suggests for each home size.

For a 2-bed with 2 movers, a half-hour delay at the desk costs £40. For a 4-bed with 4 movers, an hour lost to a missing fob or a booking nobody logged costs £160. If the delay means the crew loses the lift and has to use the stairs, the stair charge of £10 per person, per flight, per hour applies on top, as our stairs charge guide explains. A message to the desk the evening before costs nothing.

Moving out of a concierge building has its own finish line. The flat is empty, but the building still has your fobs, your deposit and, for a while, your parcels. Before you leave the desk for the last time:

1. Return every fob, key and parking permit to the person the building or your landlord named, and get a written note of what was returned
2. Walk the route with the concierge and agree its condition, with your photos from the morning to hand
3. Confirm the date any building deposit will be returned, and who to contact if it is not
4. Give the desk your forwarding contact for any parcels that still arrive
5. Check the bin store and corridor are clear of anything from your move
6. Tell your letting agent or managing agent the flat is empty, so the check-out or handover can be booked

If you rent, the building's deposit and your tenancy deposit are different things. The building's covers the common parts and is returned by the managing agent; your tenancy deposit covers the flat and goes through your landlord or agent. One being returned says nothing about the other, and getting your tenancy deposit back covers the second.

The more of the building's rules we see before the day, the fewer surprises there are on it. When you ask for a quote, send the floor and lift details for both addresses, the building's move pack or the concierge's answers, the van restrictions on the building's land, any deposit or paperwork the building needs, and a room-by-room list. You will get an itemised written quote within 24 hours, and the team confirms the final price in writing.

Our flat removals in London page covers how we plan flat moves, from mansion blocks to new-build towers. For whole homes on the same rate card, start from house removals in London. For the lift itself, read how to book a goods lift, and for car-free developments and parking permits, see moving into a tower block or new build. Planning the whole move? The London house removals page links every guide in this series.