Moving soon? Everyone who has your old address

Apparently moving house means notifying everyone you have interacted with since approximately birth.

The boxes are the visible part of a move. The invisible part is the list of every organisation that knows where you live, and the slow discovery, months later, of the one you forgot. Are you ready to move?

Who has your address?

Nobody keeps this list on purpose. It builds up over years. A rough map of where to look:

• Money. Banks, credit cards, loans, investment and retirement accounts, payment apps.
• Insurance. Car, home or renters, health, life. An address can affect a policy, which is one reason insurers ask to hear about a move.
• Government. Driver's license and vehicle registration, voter registration, tax agencies, mail forwarding. The rules and timelines vary by state and agency, and their own websites are the place to check.
• Work. Your employer's payroll and benefits records.
• Health. Doctors, dentists, pharmacies, the vet.
• Subscriptions and shopping. Deliveries, memberships, streaming accounts with a billing address, the gym.
• People. Family, friends, the person who sends a holiday card every year.

One way to build the list without relying on memory: look at the last few months of bank and card statements. Almost everything that bills you has your address.

The moving-day folder

Some things are better carried than packed. Which of these would be hardest to replace if a box went missing?

• Passports, birth certificates and Social Security cards
• The lease or closing documents for the new place, and the old one
• The moving company's contract and contact details
• Insurance information for the household and the vehicles
• Medical information and prescriptions for anyone in the household
• Keys, codes and the new place's utility account numbers

Do you know which box your birth certificate is in right now? If the answer is "one of them", that is the box to open first.

Utilities and services, both ends

A move has two sides: switching things off at the old place and on at the new one. Electricity, gas, water, internet, trash, maybe a security system. Each one has an account number, a contact and, often, a final bill or a deposit to keep track of.

Writing them down as you go means there is one place that answers "did we cancel the internet at the old apartment?" instead of a group chat archaeology project.

After the move: the slow trickle

For a while after any move, mail keeps arriving at the old address. Each forwarded letter is a small clue: an organisation that did not get the memo. It can help to keep a running note of who has been updated and who has not, so the list gets shorter instead of starting over.

The new home also starts its own records: the lease or deed, the landlord or the insurer, the warranty for the fridge that came with the place. Starting that file on day one is far easier than reconstructing it in a year.

Ready for the next address

There is often a next move. The list built this time is the head start for that one. The MOVING READY page gathers the things people most often go looking for during a move, and HOME READY covers the records a household collects once the boxes are unpacked.