Housing, insurance, banking, schooling, the paperwork. On paper it is admin. In practice it is what your family will judge the whole decision on.
A lease signed before the school is chosen. You spend the year driving against the commute, and a two-year lease cannot be undone.
Insurance bought without reading the exclusions. Newly-arrived residents are exactly who most policies leave out.
A bank account opened at whichever branch was nearest. Rejection takes weeks, and everything ordered behind it waits.
None of these is a disaster on its own. Together they are the reason the first six months feel harder than they should. We sequence it, and we do the parts you would otherwise be doing at midnight.
Sign a lease before the school is settled and you will spend the first year in traffic. We work backwards from the commute: viewings, the clause-by-clause read, negotiation, handover. We tell you what to push back on before you commit.
A bank account at whichever branch was closest, and cover bought without checking what it excludes for new arrivals. We open the account, set up remittance, place the cover you will actually claim in year one — and tell you what to skip.
Driving licence conversion, utilities, telco, domestic help, and the pass and residency questions that surface in year two. Each has a deadline attached, and missing one costs money or months. We run them in the order they have to go in.
Once the school shortlist is close to decided, because commute time and neighbourhood both follow from the school. If you have to sign before that, take a shorter lease or a serviced apartment for the first six months and decide properly with the school in hand.
Diplomatic clauses, early-termination terms, who pays for repairs, and the fact that most leases run two years with one month’s deposit plus one month in advance. We read the tenancy agreement before you sign it, not after.
Yes. We do video viewings with you and inspect in person ourselves, and we will tell you when a listing looks better on the agent’s phone than it does standing in the room.
Health cover for everyone on the pass, travel cover while you are still moving, and contents cover where the lease requires it. We will also tell you what you do not need — most newly arrived families buy more than they use.
All three are coordination jobs with paperwork attached, and we handle them. The foreign driving licence conversion has a window after you arrive, so we flag it early rather than letting it lapse.
That is four processes with four different clocks, and the order matters more than most people realise. Tell us the situation and we will map the sequence.