Specialty Moving near you

The federal rule is unusually specific about the paperwork. On an interstate household goods move, if you agree to ship goods released at a value greater than 60 cents per pound per article, the mover's liability for loss and damage may still be limited to 100 dollars per pound per article where you fail to notify it in writing of articles valued above that figure. Give the written notice and the position reverses: you are entitled to full recovery up to the declared value of the article or articles, not exceeding the declared value of the entire shipment.

The booklet's own list of the kinds of thing it means is worth reading against your own inventory, because people apply it too narrowly. Jewelry, silverware, china, furs, antiques, oriental rugs and computer software are the examples given, and the test is value per pound rather than value alone. A small box of coins or a single rug can clear the threshold where a heavy armoire never will.

The booklet also lists the actions that reduce a mover's normal liability, and three of them are yours to avoid: choosing released value while shipping goods worth more than 60 cents per pound per article, declaring a value lower than the actual value of the articles, and failing to notify the mover in writing about articles worth more than 100 dollars per pound. Ask for the mover's complete explanation of the extraordinary value limitation before the move, because the booklet says in terms that it is your responsibility to study the provision and make the necessary declaration.

Firearms are the clearest example of an item where federal and state law, not the mover's preference, sets the terms. A federal safe-passage provision entitles any person who is not otherwise prohibited from transporting, shipping or receiving a firearm to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place where they may lawfully possess and carry it to any other place where they may lawfully possess and carry it, provided that during the transportation the firearm is unloaded and neither the firearm nor any ammunition being transported is readily accessible or directly accessible from the passenger compartment; in a vehicle without a compartment separate from the driver's compartment, the firearm or ammunition must be in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console. That provision is about your own vehicle, and it does not answer whether the state you are moving to permits what you own. Check both ends before anything is packed.

Ammunition, propane cylinders, fuels, aerosols, pool chemicals and lithium batteries fall under hazardous materials rules rather than moving rules. Federal hazardous materials regulations forbid the offering for transportation of electrical devices such as batteries and battery-powered devices which are likely to create sparks or generate a dangerous evolution of heat, unless packaged in a manner which precludes such an occurrence, and forbid putting materials in the same packaging or container where mixing them is likely to cause a dangerous evolution of heat, or flammable or poisonous gases or vapors, or to produce corrosive materials.

The consequence for you is contractual as well as legal. The federal moving booklet is explicit that if you include perishable, dangerous or hazardous materials in your shipment without the mover's knowledge, that is one of the acts that limits or reduces the mover's liability, and that federal law forbids you to ship hazardous materials in your household goods boxes or luggage without informing your mover. Declare what you have and let the mover tell you what it will and will not accept.

A specialty move is usually several trades sequenced by one coordinator. A crate builder measures and builds to the object rather than to a carton size. A rigger handles anything that needs mechanical advantage: a safe down a stair run, a spa over a fence, a sculpture through a window opening. A technician breaks down and reassembles what cannot travel whole, such as a slate table or a large aquarium stand. The moving company may perform none, some or all of that with its own employees.

Federal paperwork gives you a way to see the seams. The booklet defines advanced charges as charges for services performed by someone other than the mover, where a professional, craftsman or other third party performs the service at your request, the mover pays for it and adds the charge to your bill of lading. If a third party is involved, ask who it is, whether you are contracting with the mover or with them, and whose insurance answers if the object is damaged in their hands.

Ask for the method before you ask for the price. A crate specification, a rigging plan for the heavy item, and a written sequence for disassembly and reassembly are what separate a firm that has done this from one that is hoping. On an interstate move the mover must also prepare a written, itemised inventory identifying every carton and every uncartoned item, with a matching identification number on each article, before or at the time of loading and in a way that lets you observe and verify it.