When you are planning to move your home, you should be smart and do your research on the process. One crucial part of the moving process is to get an estimate from the removalists as it will help you to plan your budget.

Though there are three types of moving estimates, binding, non-binding and not to exceed, here we are having a look at everything one needs to know about binding estimates.

In simple terms, binding estimates are those estimates which are fixed at a specific figure and remains fixed no matter what changes occur during the moving process. For example, if a mover comes to your home, has a look at your items and estimates that it would cost 1000 dollars to move all that stuff, it will be the final price.

If the cost of moving the items increases on a moving day, the mover cannot ask for more money. Similarly, if the cost is lower than what was estimated, you wouldn’t get a discount either. So, it’s binding both the parties to a single figure.

Rules of Binding Estimates

Some of the rules associated with binding estimates are:

• A moving company cannot increase the price of its services by adding on extra services without making you, the customer aware of it. The customer is only liable to pay the amount mentioned in the binding estimate and if the moving company has added any other services, it will need to bill it separately after the move.

• A moving company should provide the estimate in writing to the customer before the move so that the customer can review it and initiate a discussion on any inaccuracies or discrepancies that may be present.

• It is the responsibility of the moving company to state in the estimate that it is binding between the mover and the customer. A mover also needs to attach a copy of the binding estimate to the bill of lading. It is also a responsibility of the removalist to state that the estimate is only for the services that are listed.

• If the move has begun and the moving company notices that the items have increased considerably from what they were before then it has the right to refuse the job and create a revised binding estimate that will include the cost of moving new items that were added to the shipment. A revised binding estimate would always be costlier to the customer. So, a customer must refrain from adding extra items to the shipment.

Pros and Cons of Binding Estimates

The biggest benefit of this type of estimate is that the price will remain steady if everything goes as planned. Your budget won’t be disrupted after the move.

This estimate can be a bit of a problem for people who are not so good at planning and end up taking less stuff that they thought they would need. Such people will lose value for money as they will need to pay the pre-decided price even if the shipment is considerably lighter.

We think this type of estimate is meant for people who like to plan everything in advance and expect that the quantity of shipment items would remain the same from the day they start to plan to the day they actually move.