Transport belongings to Bulgaria

First things first - you'd be amazed at how much stuff you really don't need to bring over 😎

Ask on the FB group BGBay for recommendations for pet transport:  I don't know how much they charge - all our moggies turned up on our doorstep here... 😁

There are delivery companies here that will ship furniture, pallets etc from the UK - you'll probably need to get them to their UK depots, though.  Gabieli and GGBG are probably the best; they have prices on their web sites; Gabieli's main depot is in Plovdiv

There are a few people here who have moved their household goods here from the UK post Brexit. Most hired or bought a van and moved themselves. We haven't moved yet (waiting to qualify for a retirement D visa), but we'll probably drive ourselves. However, we won't be taking much in the way of big items like white goods or furniture. It will be easier to buy new there for things like washing machine, fridge, sofa, etc, plus we've been putting off replacing anything, so our old stuff is almost knackered anyway!

My understanding is that you need to make a declaration that these the items you're transporting are personal household items for your own use, plus an itemised inventory giving the weight, value, and age of each item. I assume that is per box of items, like a box of crockery or a box of clothes.  Import tax could be payable on anything imported for resale, that is new and unused, or less than 6 months old. For larger and higher value items it's recommended to get a copy of the receipt so you can show it's over six months old.

You will probably also need to show some evidence you are relocating to Bulgaria, a copy of your passport (ideally with the D visa), a rental agreement or notary paperwork for an owned property.

I hope some of the people who've already done their own moving chime in. If I remember right, most said that it wasn't difficult getting through customs, it was treated more like items in personal baggage and the paperwork they'd carefully prepared wasn't much more than glanced at.

Good luck with the move!

@71terrythetree

Plovdiv's a tip-top choice, congratulations!

But it's expensive, are you buying (or have you already bought) a place big enough to fit "a lot of stuff"?

We have a lovely flat in central Plovdiv, but it definitely wouldn't fit much of our UK stuff, and it was far easier to furnish it from scratch. We did bring stuff over (with a man-and-a-van guy with his Luton) as we could put it in our house in the Balkan Mountains. But it's mostly just sat there, unloved, we could really have saved ourselves the money and aggravation. :-)

As others have said, it's a good time to think about how much of your stuff really has significant value (monetary or sentimental) that justifies carting it a couple of thousand klicks. Especially for 10 large.

As well as the Luton guy, I purchased a trailer on Ebay, so I drove over a full car and trailer. Not furniture, of course, but a LOT of stuff. Again, same deal, we've barely bothered to unpack it, let alone re-use it.

My vote is for a bit of a cull, and a DIY move. Personally, I'd buy a trailer on Ebay and do a car-and-trailer move of the cat and non-furniture. Or I'd get a older Luton (they fit a fair amount if you pack carefully) on Ebay, and take the cat and more stuff. Then sell the Luton/trailer here (or re-register).

Don't be scared of paperwork and customs. You're doing a move with your personal effects. If you go via Romania (not Serbia), then it's EU all the way.

I guess we are going to get rid of a lot of stuff - sofas etc but what remains is going to be expensive to replace like for like,

Our bed for example was 3k, big American fridge freezer, books - a lot of them but not worth much, Kids stuff, clothes - the wife loves clothes, 12ft trampoline for the kids - ok can be collapsed, tools - way too expensive to replace so many of them.

The list goes on, but thank you for all your advice, it gives me things to think about

Gwyn (as always!) makes a very good point. It might be best to avoid making specific plans for what to move and how to move it until you know where you're going to live. It would be a real pain to wrestle one of those big American fridges into a van (or pay someone else rather a lot to move it for you) and then find there's just not the space for it in the new kitchen!

We constantly send stuff back and forth via local Bulgarian shops. Was recently quoted 1.5 euros a kilo to send stuff back to Bulgaria (from Ireland to address in Bulgaria). Probably has limits for large items but good for clothes, books and other stuff etc.

That's an excellent price! I think goods going to and from the UK may be charged much higher. Which service do you use?

Best thing I ever did was get rid of most of my books - aided I must admit by 3 sets of French burglars. Just what they wanted with 12,000 books, mostly in languages they couldn't read, is anyone's guess but I eventually realised that they'd done me a favour. Nowadays, I have more books than I'll probably ever live to read on a couple of tablets - and I don't need a truck to transport them!

I do have a small library of dictionaries, plus some of my favourite recipe books, in dead tree versions, and Her Indoors has a rather larger one of boring technical tomes, many of them written by her, in Bulgarian or English.

Given the cost of transport - and the effort of storing (and dusting) them - I'd strongly suggest that you'd get some useful advice from Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451".... 😎

@janemulberry

Just contact your local expat Bulgarian food shop in the UK and ask if they have a truck going to Bulgaria (or vice versa). The last one we did collected from house in Bulgaria then we collected from the shop here.

@VillageLife

Good to know! Thanks for the suggestion!

@JimJ

Those were some organised burglars, to come with a truck big enough to transport all those books! I used to have a huge book collection, but had to let them all go when I left Australia to move to the UK.  Somewhat heartbreaking, especially as many are out of print so not easily replaceable. I am now very happy to have most of my books in ebook, and will only be taking a box or two of paper books for the move to Bg. My own books in paperback just because they look so pretty lined up on the shelf, and a few cookbooks, gardening, and sewing books that don't work so well as ebooks. Hubby is insistent that all his books must come.

@janemulberry

Don't worry, Jane - they'll come in handy sooner or later....winters here can be very cold! 😎

Good idea! Though I'm not sure our petchka is up to book burning. They burn far hotter than 451F. The one time I had a chimney fire -- most impressive, with flames shooting high into the sky! -- was when I burned books.  Not printed books, but a huge stack of very personal diaries handwritten into paperback journals I wanted to destroy before moving house. Made me glad I'd paid extra for that double-walled stainless steel flue liner, or the house would almost certainly have been damaged!