Britannia Lanes

Firstly I must praise the crew on our move from Devon to Hampshire. They were everything that the office should have been and wasn't - cheerful, happy, efficient, good at their jobs. The office staff were a disaster zone - adding on extra charges after the contract was agreed - including one for delivering on a later day than had been requested!. We were also joined with another move without advising us, or offering a discount. Staff were slow to respond and rude. I have used Britannia on multiple occasions in the UK, Europe and North America, but not this office before which I was bitterly disappointed with.

Move size: 4 Bedroom Home Service cost: £4000

Do not use this company. The labelling of boxes was very poor (it took 2 days to find pots and pans and 3 days to find our cutlery after move) Our move was supposed to be on a Friday, but when you get a full day’s pay at double rates for coming back on Saturday for 3 hours work, it’s not surprising that they ran out of time and left us in our new house with only a bed then came back Saturday to unload the rest of the house ( at an extra £400 over and above the original signed contract!)I can prove nothing, but a large sum of money disappeared during the move. There is no mention of this review company on their website but they claim 5 gold stars of approval from another company, and decline to allow me to comment using that company (it might spoil the 5 star rating). No apologies from the managing director. Only self justification. I would not recommend this company to my worst enemy.

Move size: 3 Bedroom Home Service cost: £1355

We recently had to arrange removal of some items, including a piano, from the north of Scotland to Truro. Every step of the way Britannia Lanes were extremely helpful, accommodating and very professional. The collection was from my parents house, so there was a third party involved and the guys contacted my parents to advise on collection plans, arrival times etc. My parents reported that the guys collecting our stuff were lovely and certainly, the two men who came to deliver our items were fantastic, very efficient and professional. I would highly recommend and would use again.

Service cost: £900

Awful company which doesn't even deserve one star. I experienced numerous problems including poor staff attitudes, contradictory information (phone versus in writing) and then to top it all blaming me the customer for the issues. Despite a four page complaint the director still denied any wrong-doing and colluded with his staff.

Avoid this company as there are far better removal companies available who have reliable, accurate and polite staff and handle complaints far better.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: £1794

We had a professional home visit from the Britannia Lanes surveyor and what I felt to be a reasonable quote. I accepted the quote in writing and asked to be forwarded the documentation for signing, after BL confirmed our packing and move dates were available and had been booked in to the diary. A week later I had still not received the details so chased them up, as we were by then 10 days away from our packing date, and was told a mistake had been made and they had double-booked and so were cancelling us. The person on the phone clearly wasn't bothered and did not attempt to find any solution for us. So, 9 days ahead of our move I had to get new quotes in, which was extremely stressful. I wish I had read the negative reviews of Britannia Lanes before I contracted them. Do not use this firm - there are many far more professional organisations out there!

Service cost: £3500

Guy arrived on Wednesday to box all none big items, very nice fella, his apprentice (my 5 year old daughter) was assisted by him really well, and he was hugely patient with her. Friday same guy with his work mate were back on time. They did a fantastic job in moving us out of old house and heading to new house (5 miles). Again unloaded extremely efficient and had everything in house, laid out in the correct places, some really heavy stuff, but nothing was a problem, and the still had the apprentice!!
Can't speak highly enough of these guys, they were exceptionally good and a credit to the company, these are the people who make a company!!

Service cost: £1100

Would not recommend this company for overseas shipment. We were quoted 12 weeks door to door. We followed the timeline suggested by the "expert" movers to the day. Our goods were collected on 20th March and were received by us at our Australian residence 5 days ago. 5 months door to door. After the collection of goods I heard absolutely nothing from Britannia Lanes, one would assume this was a good thing. However, I called them 72 days in to gather information about the agents on the Australian leg of the shipment, only to be casually told that our consignment was still in storage in Exeter (!!?) and wasn't even allocated to a ship yet. No one felt I should be contacted to inform me that the time schedule organised would not be met. I was told that not so many ships were destined for Melbourne, (they didn't know why, perhaps Brexit!) hence the delay. I found this unacceptable. I contacted other overseas shipping companies and they could not verify this theory as they were not experiencing this "slow down" and the term "someone's dropped the ball" pretty much summed up the situation. For a company that was supposed to have access to "fastest shipping lanes with a reliable, scheduled timetable that allows you to plan ahead with confidence" (as quoted from Britannia Lanes of Devon website) service so far was unacceptable and disappointing. If they held their hands up to making a mistake and apologised it would have sat with me much better. However, what I found even more exasperating was the attitude and incompetence from various members of office staff, and in particular the MD, who was uncommunicative- no business email or telephone number could be given to me (??!) and he found it acceptable to not return a call or email for over one week. When he did reply, he was misinformed, defensive and, I felt, aggressive. According to citizens advice I was entitled to consequential loss, I wanted money to not have to re-buy the essentials;towels, duvets and pillows, cutlery and crockery as I chose to send what we had, and borrow items in England until we departed. Mr Lane would not accept this and battled me. He made my experience (at this already stressful time) of moving my young family with a 2yr old and 4year old to the other side of the world very anxious and stressful. My children went without their toys and most familiar belongings for 5 months. For a family run company to be heartless about this is wrong and I feel they don't deserve business from families.
Other incompetences included declaration paperwork and photographs of declared items incomplete. Apparently it was my fault a declared knife was not packed and labelled separately for inspection through quarantine and all glass items that were shipped arrived broken. Comments from the guys unpacking our consignment this end suggested that the packing wasn't effective to withstand the journey. I somehow have to muster up the energy to process an insurance claim.
This process has been by far the most stressful and expensive of our whole move. If your business is to work with families during very big and emotional changes, your service should be much much better than this.

Service cost: £3000

I used Brittania Lanes as they had moved my house contents previously from France to Exeter satisfactorily. The actual removal men were excellent and efficient, but - when they turned up to remove the contents of my house to take into storage, I could tell immediately that the Luton van was too small. The men had not been told and had to do two trips rather than one, seriously mucking up their schedules. When I telephoned the company to organise the furniture to be returned, I mentioned the fact I needed a bigger van. I was speaking to the director, Mr. Lane. He got very belligerent, saying his men knew they needed two trips. All he had to do was apologise and admit there'd been a mistake in communication, but instead he blamed his employees by effectively saying they were lying. Bad customer care Mr. Lane, you really annoyed a happy customer and need to go on a course in anger management and customer relations.

Service cost: £1200

I needed to move some furniture and boxes into storage. I also needed help moving furniture from one storage unit to another. I hired a van and two men for three hours. Rob was very plaseant and efficient in arranging and confirming the arrangements.
Tommy and Paul arrived promptly. They were courteous and helpful. They efficiently and speedily loaded and unloaded the van. Nothing was too much trouble for them. They both had a good sense of humour. The support given made a potentially stressful morning run very smoothly.

Thank you all.

Service cost: £195

We had our furniture in BL storage for two and a half months. When they collected the contents they were very professional, careful and kind. They were very friendly and made sure the experience was stress free. I felt very comfortable that our furniture was in safe hands. They worked so hard during the removal.

When our stuff got delivered back to our new house we had two different workers but again very friendly helpful and went the extra mile to ensure everything was in the correct rooms and place. I can’t fault them at all. They did an amazing job and would 100% use again!

We had a brilliant experience and the communication was fantastic. Always got back to my emails when I needed to ask a question or had any queries.

Thank you again for a stress free experience! 10 out of 10!!

Service cost: £1000

I recently moved from Falmouth to Truro to be closer to my daughter and grandchildren. From the first contact with the office to the chap coming to my house to give me a quote I felt at ease with Britannia Lanes. The 3 young men were fantastic and I couldn't quite believe their stamina, but hopefully my plentiful cups of tea and coffee helped! Would highly recommend them to anybody. Thanks again to all involved. *please note I have had to choose Plymouth as the drop down menu had neither of our towns or county*.

Service cost: £600

I am going back 6 years now since we used this firm for our move from Devon to West Sussex. I have just found this website, there was nothing like this when we did our move. Just to let prospective customers know that the service from this firm is diabolical. Our belongings/furniture had to be put into storage for 5 weeks before we could get into our new house. Things were carefully loaded into wardrobe type cabinets and we were assured they would be stored like this and left in these cabinets until delivered to their destination in West Sussex. This is not true! They arrived in a removal lorry. Most of my treasured glass and china arrived smashed to smithereens. Furniture and garden ornaments were damaged. I actually saw one man drop a concrete garden ornament and he balanced it on top of the broken base which could have severely injured my granddaughter if she had touched it! A lot of things, children's toys, tools etc disappeared and we are still discovering things that we know we had packed or loaded onto the removal lorry are not here and so were not delivered eg tree loppers that were expensive but it's not until you go to fetch it that you realise it's not there!! After a lot of hassle I think they offered me about £200 to go away. Wasn't nearly enough but was really sick to death of them by then. Would never, ever recommend this firm.

Service cost: £1000

I used Brtiannia Lanes of Exeter for my removals. They were expensive but seemed like a proffessional outfit and I thought it was worth it. How very wrong was I! The guys doing the removals were really nice, professional and made the move very easy. My issue is not with the staff it the management of the company. During the move a number of my items were damaged, I know it's inevitable and so took extra insurance. The management at Britannia Lanes refused to take responsibility for the damage, even though it was 100% evident it was them. I was very dissappointed with their attitude and woudl advise anyone thinkng of doing business with them to think again, they are unlikely to hounor their contract with regard to insurance and damage. When I moved the next time I used a local chap who was excellent, the damage was minimal and he was more than happy to pay for the damage, however, I didn't bother with as the damage was so minimal. My advice is to keep clear of Britannia Lanes, they will charge you the earth, encourage you to take extra insurance and then when they damage your items, if you want the money, you will have to take them to court. I hope someone will do this in the future and I'm sorry that I didn't.

Service cost: £3500

Came across as professional when the representative came out to give us a quote. The actual move was rushed.We had various items damaged(bedside cabinet,cooker,bookcase and sofa) and items missing(parts for child stairgate and a bag of play sand) We left them to it at the destination point and after they had left found most of the boxes had been left in the easiest place for them to be left. All the boxes were marked for the relevant rooms.They didn't bother to wrap the furniture with stretchy polythene. A poor man and van service masquerading as a professional removal company with a price to match. Definitely would not recommend.Offered a derisory £50 for the damage and hassle of putting the boxes in the right rooms.

Service cost: £750

Was told 4 movers would arrive due to having some very heavy items that would need 4 people. Only 2 people arrived, so had to phone the office to complain. Not what you need at an already stressful time. The guys who did arrive had not been briefed as to how much there was to move or how heavy some of the items were, despite the fact we were visited ahead of the move and we explained this. To be fair, more people arrived on the second day and the guys were all very helpful and worked hard. After they had gone we had to correct some mistakes they made when reassembling some of the furniture - such as wardrobe doors on the wrong wardrobes which stopped the doors from closing properly. Clearly no labelling was done to ensure they reassembled things correctly.
With regret we will not be using Britannia in future.

Service cost: £2000

I was super stressed prior to this move. The guys arrived exactly on time, and got down to business right away. Through their obvious professionalism and good humour, they put me at ease pretty quickly. Things I saw as potential problems didn’t phase them in the slightest. Going so far as removing (and then replacing) doors, which wouldn’t allow some reupholstered furniture to pass.

Delivery at the other end couldn’t have been better. My wife was there to receive the delivery.. again they couldn’t do enough to oblige. They’d delivered all boxes upstairs, as she’d requested. Then to discover that all the kitchen equipment was now in the wrong place! No problem.. they brought those back down to the kitchen. They removed an old unwieldy sofa from the living room, to make more space, into the yard as she requested. Nothing at all was too much trouble!

I cannot speak highly enough of this company, and more specifically of these two men who made this move happen.

Move size: 2 Bedroom Home Service cost: £1700

We were moving from South Somerset to Cheddar. Our new property is up a very narrow steep winding Lane, which required them to assess before the day. Of all the quotes we got from other companies Brittania made the effort to visit the site and come up with a plan as to how the move would be achieved. We had full confidence that they offered the best option for a smooth hassle free move. The packers were professional, thorough and we had a good laugh with them. I suppose the donuts, cakes and biscuits helped!On the day, the same team were patient and the delay was expected , rather than our fault. Extra men were brought in to empty

Six smaller vans, speeding up the process. Bed was built, furniture placed correctly which made the unpacking process much easier.

All in all we are extremely happy with the service we received and would highly recommend them.

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: £5000

I was recommended this company, but what a disappointment. Under estimated survey, lorry too small for load. Legs of furniture missing and broken, lots of items broken. Even items that were carefully wrapped. Legs pulled of items which were glued on and not for removal. All because they tried to load it on to a small lorry. Items badly scratched and bulged. I hadn't taken insurance which was my decision but I didn't think that may items would have been damaged.

No mats were put down on off load even though I said the carpets had been cleaned. I put old curtains down to protect the carpets. The boxes were stacked to the ceiling and upside down and on their sides even though it said FRAGILE.

VERY POOR

Move size: 4+ Bedroom Home Service cost: £3000