This Friday is set to be the busiest day of the year for moving house

Back in 2006, I was selling my third property and buying my fourth. 

I knew the golden rule of not moving on a Friday.

Not only it is more expensive as it is such a popular day to move house and removal men are in high demand, but if anything goes wrong, you have less time to sort things out.

If things go wrong, you have to patiently wait for the weekend to pass and solicitors to return to their office on the Monday.

However, I still ended up trying to move on a Friday in December.

As well as starting a new job that week, I needed the weekend to settle in and it was December. Surely in the depths of winter, just before Christmas, fewer people would be moving and I could get away with moving on a Friday.

So I agreed to the long chain moving on that Friday, in the hope of getting the deal done.

However, what I forgot to factor in was Christmas parties, something my seller’s solicitor conveniently didn’t mention.

Indeed, that very morning on moving day, our solicitors and estate agents were all talking to one another, suggesting everything was on track to complete contracts and move house. My large removal van turned up to my home and the removal men started loading it up.

It was during this process, around lunchtime, that things started to go extremely quiet. I soon learnt that my vendor’s solicitor had left the office for the afternoon. Apparently, to go to his office Christmas party, I was told.

It meant that he could not confirm whether he had received my money, which was being transferred to the vendor.

At this point my vendor’s estate agent started negotiating with me so I could at least unload my removal van at what was going to be my new home.

They audaciously offered a one-hour slot to unload as much as I could, to store my items in my vendor’s property over the weekend.

This offer would cost me something to the tune of £1,500 (remember this was in 2006, which taking into account inflation is more like £2,500 today).

It also meant I had to deal with my buyer’s removal men who were just turning up to my property.

A deal was done and contracts were completed on the Monday. I hope my buyer’s solicitor didn’t have too much of a hangover during the weekend.