Our booking form asks about parking restrictions for a large Luton or tipper outside the property. It sounds like a formality. It is the single question whose answer most often decides whether a clearance takes one day or two.
The van is bigger than people picture
A Luton is around seven metres long, three and a half tonnes, and needs headroom that a domestic car park barrier will not give it. It cannot mount a kerb, cannot turn in a cul-de-sac designed for hatchbacks, and cannot sit on a resident's bay it has no permit for.
What actually goes wrong
Controlled parking zones. Most inner-London boroughs and plenty of town centres are permit-only through the working day. There is no loading exception worth relying on. Where a bay suspension is needed, the council wants notice — usually a couple of weeks — and **only the owner or the seller can apply**. We cannot do it on your behalf. Tell us early enough and we will tell you plainly whether you need one.
Distance. Where the van has to stand fifty yards away, every mattress is carried fifty yards. That is time, and it is time somebody pays for. We would far rather price it in than discover it at eight in the morning.
Height and weight limits. Underground car parks, low bridges, weight-restricted lanes, gated estates with a barrier. All fine when known in advance.
Gravel and gateposts. In the older suburbs the gateposts were set for a 1970s estate car and the drive has thirty years of gravel on it. A loaded Luton on soft gravel is a recovery truck waiting to happen.
Overhanging trees. Lime and horse chestnut over a drive and a Luton roof do not agree.
What to tell us when you ring
The street name and postcode. Whether there is a driveway, and whether a seven-metre van can get on and off it. Whether the road is permit-controlled and during what hours. Whether there is a barrier, a height limit or a weight limit. And whether the nearest legal stopping point is outside the door or round the corner.
None of it disqualifies a job. All of it changes the plan, and a plan made the week before costs less than one made on the pavement.