Moving house: everything you need to update

It’s six weeks after the move, when the boxes are mostly gone and the new heating works most of the time, that a neighbour from the old street texts to say a parcel has arrived for you. You go and collect it. It’s from a clothing subscription you signed up to two years ago, forgot was on a Direct Debit, and never updated. You think, briefly, how many other things still go to the old address.

The honest answer is more than you’d expect. Moving is rarely stressful in the week itself - the lorry comes, the keys exchange, the curry arrives - and is often stressful in the three months after, when the long tail of admin surfaces one item at a time: a DVLA letter to the old address, a council tax bill from the old authority, a car insurance renewal that’s quietly costing you more because the postcode is wrong.

What follows is the full list. Doing most of it in the two weeks either side of the move turns the next three months from a slow drip of “oh, didn’t I do that?” into something closer to a packing problem.

Utilities

The things you sort in the first week, each with its own small pitfall.

Gas and electricity. Read the meters on the day you leave the old place, and again on the day you move in. Photograph them. The energy supplier opens a final account at the old address and a new one at the new address, but only if the readings are right; if they aren’t, the estimated bills drift and the correction lands months later.
Water. Notify the water company at both ends. Most properties in England and Wales aren’t metered, which means a fixed annual charge that needs assigning to the right account; if you are metered, take a reading.
Broadband. Some providers will move your service with the contract intact; some end the contract and start a new one. The difference matters - an early-termination fee can show up months later if the move was treated as a cancellation. Worth a call before you go, not after.
Council recycling. Bin collection days, garden waste subscriptions, and bulky-waste pickups all change with the address.

The statutory stuff

The places where forgetting causes real friction with government bodies.

Council tax. Tell the old council you’re leaving and the new council you’ve arrived. Otherwise you end up paying both for a few weeks, or getting a backdated bill. Most councils take this online.
DVLA driving licence. Free to update at gov.uk. Driving on a licence with the wrong address is a £1,000 fine.
DVLA V5C log book. Same gov.uk page. The V5C is the document that proves you own the car, and updating it also updates where the next car tax reminder, MOT reminder and recall notice get sent.
HMRC. Tax records, PAYE, self-assessment, child benefit. All updatable in one place at gov.uk under your personal tax account.
NHS / GP. Register with a new GP if you’re moving outside your old practice’s catchment area. Your medical records follow you, but don’t leave it until you need an appointment.
TV licence. Update at tvlicensing.co.uk. A licence is per-household, and the address has to match.
Electoral roll. Re-register at gov.uk/register-to-vote. Otherwise your credit score takes a small hit, and you can’t vote when an election is called at short notice.

Money

The places that hold the money or talk to the money.

Bank and building society. Each account, separately. Joint accounts need both people. Some banks update via the app; some still want a phone call.
Credit cards. Each provider, separately. Statements going to the old address are a small fraud risk.
Mortgage provider, or the letting agent if you’re renting elsewhere.
Pension. Both workplace and personal. The provider needs the right address for annual statements and, eventually, for the thing that actually pays out.
Premium Bonds, NS&I, and ISA providers. Each one. Easy to forget the dormant ones.
Employer. Payroll and HR. P60s and tax documents go where payroll thinks you live.

Insurance

The category where the address change is most likely to change the price - usually upwards if you’re moving into a more expensive postcode, sometimes downwards.

Home insurance. Don’t just update the address; the policy needs re-quoting. Contents are different, building is different, postcode risk is different. A change of address is a material fact under the contract, which means failing to declare it can invalidate cover.
Car insurance. Premiums depend heavily on where the car is parked overnight. Update before the next renewal, and check the premium that comes back - if it’s gone up significantly, it’s worth re-shopping rather than auto-renewing.
Pet insurance. Easy to forget. Vet records and claim forms go to the address on file.
Life insurance. Probably nothing changes operationally, but the policy holds an address for correspondence and for the eventual payout. Update once and forget.

The everyday stuff

The accounts you only remember when something goes wrong.

Subscriptions. Streaming, magazines, food box, wine club, supplements. The clothing-subscription parcel from the opening was probably one of these.
Online shops. Amazon, eBay, supermarket delivery, John Lewis. The default address is the one that matters - update it before the next order.
Delivery apps. Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber, and any taxi accounts.
Vet, dentist, opticians. Same problem as the GP: records and reminders go to the old address until you tell them.
Mobile phone provider. A few still send paper bills, and the address is where the fraud-check letter goes if the SIM is replaced.
School, nursery, after-school clubs. Update before half-term, not at the gate.

What you’ll forget

Two things consistently escape the first pass.

The Royal Mail redirect. Not a permanent fix, but a six-month redirect (about £40) catches the things you missed. Set it up the week before you move so it starts on day one. It’s the safety net under everything above.
The dormant accounts. The thing you signed up to in 2019, the savings account from a job ten years ago, the pension from an employer you don’t remember the name of. The redirect catches some of them. The rest surface, slowly, over the year after the move.

The reason this list is long is partly that it is, and partly that every item sits in a different category - government, money, insurance, daily life - which means it sits in a different place in your inbox or your head.

If the details are already held in one place, a move stops being a search through your own memory and becomes a batch job. We built Oosby for this: if your insurance details, subscriptions, renewal dates and account references are already in one place, “update the address” is one afternoon, not a slow drip across three months.

Six weeks after the next move, when a neighbour from the old street texts about a parcel, the answer is “thanks - I think we got them all.”