How long does it take before you can move into a rental flat?

I am getting ready to move over to the UK. I have a job lined up and will start on Monday 23 Feb. I will be arriving on Friday afternoon the weekend before (not much time to get settled). On an earlier trip I identified the neighborhoods that my wife and I want to live in. I have checked rightmove.co.uk, and there are lots of properties that are available “immediately.” I have enough cash in GBP readily available to pay all the expenses for a 6 month lease up front (although I would prefer not to do that).

I am guessing that if I find a place on a Saturday afternoon that I will not be able to move in that day. How long from finding a place that I like until I can move in? Where do people stay when looking for a place? I really do not want to live in a hotel for an extended period. I was thinking of renting a short-term extended stay type flat. I have seen some advertised for about £200 a week, which seems better than a hotel.

I'm not sure whether it's possible to move in so soon or not - I recently moved into a rental flat in Bristol and it took about a month from seeing the flat and signing contracts to being able to move in, although that was mostly due to the fact that we had to wait for the flat owners to move out before we could move in (which was 3 weeks after we signed the contract).

It also took a few days for references to be checked and our deposits to clear, so had the flat already been empty, we probably would have still had to wait maybe a week or so for the paperwork to be sorted before we could have moved in.

timelines really depend on the property/landlord/letting agency.  But just to give you my experience- we started looking for a property around the 25th of April last year, amassed a list of about 5 properties to see within a couple of days, saw them all within a week and happily the first property we saw was the one we wanted to rent.  So then we had to get our documentation/references together, which took a few days.  We signed the lease on 8 May, but had to wait until 1 June to move in to allow the previous tenants to finish out their lease.

So 5-6 weeks from start to finish...had we been able to move in immediately, it would have been more like 3 weeks at most. We rented from a private landlord, though, so we didn't have to fuss with agencies.

It took about 3 weeks for us to get into our flat in London.  It was empty when we saw it, so there wasn't a current tenant to worry about, but it still took a while to receive, review and revise the lease, complete reference checks and wait for the check to clear.  I think it could easily have been done in 2 weeks, but our estate agent "kept forgetting to check her email" and wouldn't get back to us on questions for days on end. 

It took us a month to find a place, and then a week from finding it to move in.  We stayed in hotels while waiting, which was definitely expensive.  But we weren't able to find any short-term places because of the same reason it took us so long to find a house-- no credit history and guarantor = no rental at a lot of places.

I am getting ready to move over to the UK. I have a job lined up and will start on Monday 23 Feb. I will be arriving on Friday afternoon the weekend before (not much time to get settled). On an earlier trip I identified the neighborhoods that my wife and I want to live in. I have checked rightmove.co.uk, and there are lots of properties that are available “immediately.” I have enough cash in GBP readily available to pay all the expenses for a 6 month lease up front (although I would prefer not to do that).

I am guessing that if I find a place on a Saturday afternoon that I will not be able to move in that day. How long from finding a place that I like until I can move in? Where do people stay when looking for a place? I really do not want to live in a hotel for an extended period. I was thinking of renting a short-term extended stay type flat. I have seen some advertised for about £200 a week, which seems better than a hotel.

Whereabouts are you moving to?

Both places I've lived here have taken just around a week. It usually breaks down to 1 day for viewing and application (and usually this comes a few days after you call... I've never experienced a same-day viewing), 2 days for reference checks, 1 day to tell you it's yours, and another day to get the lease signed and get the keys.

When we had to leave our last place, we started looking on the afternoon of the 25th and were moving and getting keys on the 1st. Of course, we also had local references and a full year at our previous address, and a bit of credit between us.

That was a year ago, though. I know in some markets places aren't moving, so everyone is really eager to get a tenant in fast. I was speaking to an estate agent on Friday, and when I said we would want to move around the 1st, she actually asked if we'd be willing to move in sooner.

I am moving to Nottingham.

From looking at rightmove and talking to the agents, the letting market moves pretty fast. Most places are only listed on the website for a few days. When I was in Nottingham last, I found an agency that I am interested in using (Frank Innes). They seem to always have a few places available in locations I am interested in and in my price range. I was hoping to get the references and documentation in order, and setup the viewings before I headed over. It sounds like if I preplan and everything goes well, I can be moved in within a week.