The first thing people say when you mention you’re moving is, “It must be very stressful.” But why does it have to be? In England, so many lives full of plans and promises are disrupted by the house-moving process.

We try to follow instructions we are given. We get our paperwork in order. We pack our boxes. We donate furniture because there’s an inbuilt wardrobe in the new house. Then, two months after “hopefully couple of weeks,” we’re buying a clothes rail because our clothes have been lying in a heap on the floor.

We place our trust, our money, and, most importantly, our lives into the hands of professionals who assure us they will look after our interests. In reality, our needs seem to sit somewhere at the very bottom of their priority list.

They don’t see the couple whose relationship falls apart after months of false starts and shifting deadlines, each blaming the other for understanding the phrase “hopefully in 2 weeks” literally.
They don’t see the parent lying awake, torn between keeping their child in the current school or braving a long commute to the new one, still unsure when—“hopefully by the end of the month”—the move will happen.
They don’t see the elderly relative, counting down the days to a promised home with no stairs, watching those days stretch into weeks, then into months, always prefaced by that empty word: “hopefully.”

This “hope” isn’t real. It’s not a date on a calendar or a plan we can work around—it’s a guess, tossed like a coin, passed from solicitor to estate agent, from lender to leaseholder, each blaming the next. Nobody takes ownership. Nobody feels the urgency that we live with daily.

I am a strong person. But strength frays when mornings start with the question, “Which box has my warm clothes as the summer is coming to an end?” and end with the sinking realisation that another day has passed with no answers. And when I think of complaining, I know it is futile. Firstly, who do you complain to and, secondly, the contracts for all the companies involved have been written to protect one side—and it isn’t mine.

This process is broken. It should not take such a toll on families, relationships, and health. We need a system where information flows, where accountability exists, where hope isn’t a guess but a promise kept. Whether it’s shared databases, verified property portfolios before a listing goes live, or a streamlined legal framework—there must be a better way.

Moving house should mean moving forward—not standing still while your life is boxed up. And until the system changes, too many of us will keep living in limbo, waiting for a future we were told was just “two weeks away.”