Moving house: the steps, in order
A move is prepared in boxes, but it is won or lost on paper: a badly dated notice, a rushed inventory, meters nobody read, and your deposit or months of bills are gone. Here is the timeline, from before the move to the day after.
Two months before: the notice
If you rent, everything starts with the end of your current lease. Notice is given in writing — registered letter, hand delivery against receipt or bailiff's writ — and its length, like any compensation, depends on the type of lease, how long it has run and the Region. Our page on tenant rights sets them out.
The notice period does not run from the day you send it, but in principle from the first day of the following month. A letter posted on the 3rd therefore costs you almost a month more than one posted on the 30th of the previous month. Count back from the date you move into the new home, not from today.
During the notice period the landlord can usually arrange viewings, at agreed times. Use those weeks for the small tenant repairs — plug holes, seals, cleaning: those, far more than major damage, are what gets deducted from deposits.
The move-out inventory
This is the document that decides what happens to your deposit. It is drawn up jointly: in the presence of both parties or their representatives, against the move-in inventory. The principle is simple — you return the home in the state you received it, apart from normal wear and tear.
If no move-in inventory was drawn up, the law generally presumes the tenant received the property in the state in which they return it. That is a strong argument, but it is only a presumption: keep your own move-in photos if you have them.
The meters, on the day
Electricity, gas, water: the readings on moving day decide who pays for what. The energy sector uses an energy takeover document that the outgoing and incoming occupants sign together — it can be downloaded from suppliers and grid operators.
An unread meter means a settlement bill that mixes your consumption with your successor's, and weeks of back-and-forth to untangle it. Read the meters together, on the same day, with a photo of each meter, and send the readings to your supplier.
Your energy contract follows you: you can move it to the new address or use the move to switch supplier. For water, the rule depends on the municipality's water company: contact it yourself, at both addresses.
On arrival: move-in and deposit
At the new home, the same documents are done the other way round. The move-in inventory is mandatory, detailed, and must be attached to the lease. Be as thorough moving in as moving out: every defect you do not get recorded will be charged to you when you leave.
The rental deposit is usually placed in a blocked account in the tenant's name, with the interest going to the tenant. Its cap and the accepted forms — blocked account, bank guarantee, help from the CPAS/OCMW — depend on the Region: see our page on tenant rights. Paying cash or into the landlord's personal account does not protect you.
Registering the lease is the landlord's obligation, and it is free for a residential lease. Check that it has been done: a registered lease protects you if the property is sold while you are renting.
Tenant's fire insurance is often required by the lease or by regional rules. Even when it is not, you are liable as a tenant for fire or water damage: insuring that costs little compared with the risk.
The municipality and your address
You must report your change of address to the administration of your new municipality within eight working days of moving in. Many municipalities let you do it online. The old municipality is informed automatically.
A residence check by the neighbourhood police officer usually follows, to confirm that you really live there. Once you are registered, you will be invited to have the address on your identity card updated.
Do not wait: until you are registered, your official mail — taxes, fines, summonses — goes to the old address, and several rights depend on your address in the National Register. Public bodies that consult it find out on their own; private companies never do.
Who else to tell
This is the list nobody keeps and the one that causes the most lost mail. Public bodies often follow your National Register address; everyone else is up to you:
If you are buying rather than renting
When you buy, the timeline is set by the notarial deed: you receive the keys when it is signed, and the meters are read that day with the seller. Before that, the sale agreement checklist and the purchase costs calculation set out what you need to have planned.
Two points buyers forget when moving in: fire insurance must cover the property from the signing of the deed — often from the sale agreement already, depending on its clauses —, and the year's property tax is usually split between seller and buyer in the notary's settlement.
What we do not put figures on
Notice periods, early-termination compensation and deposit caps differ by Region and type of lease. They are sourced and published on our page on tenant rights; we do not repeat them here, so as not to create two versions of the same figure.
Removal firms' rates, mail forwarding and subscription transfer fees change too often to be usefully published. Ask for two or three quotes, and compare them like for like.
If you keep only two documents from a move, keep the signed inventory and the signed meter readings. They, and almost nothing else, settle disputes.