1. Access was never checked
This is the biggest one by a distance. A quote given over the phone without anyone establishing the floor, the lift dimensions, where a truck can stop and how far the door is from that point is not a price. It is a guess.
The morning it becomes expensive is the morning the crew discovers the lift will not take a wardrobe and a furniture hoist is needed, or that the truck has to park two hundred metres away. Both are entirely knowable in advance, and neither is knowable from a phone call that did not ask.
2. The volume was optimistic
A quote built on an underestimated volume is cheap on paper and undeliverable in practice. The vehicle that arrives cannot take the load, and you are then negotiating on the pavement with your belongings half out of the house.
It is worth being honest with yourself here, because the underestimate is often the client's rather than the company's. The garage, the cellar and the terrace are where it happens, and a company that does not ask about them has left the gap open.
3. Packing was assumed, not agreed
"Packing included" can mean the crew wraps your furniture in blankets, or it can mean they arrive with materials and pack the contents of every cupboard. Those are completely different amounts of work and completely different prices.
The question to ask is direct: who puts the contents of my kitchen into boxes, and are the boxes included? An answer that is vague is not an oversight. It is where the extra will appear.
4. The job is going to be subcontracted
A company that takes your booking and then sells the job on to whoever is available has no control over who arrives at your door. The crew you meet has no relationship with the company you spoke to, and no stake in whether you are happy.
That is the arrangement behind a large share of moves that go wrong in Morocco. It is also the reason we do not do it: our crews are salaried, they are the same people every time, and there is nobody to point at if something is damaged.
What a properly priced quote looks like
You can recognise one quickly, because it demonstrates that someone has actually thought about your specific move rather than about moves in general.
- It follows a survey — in person, or from photos and video
- It states the volume it was calculated on
- It says what happens if access needs a furniture hoist
- It is explicit about who packs what, and whether materials are included
- It says who will carry out the work
- It is written down
Compare like with like
Three quotes are useful only if they describe the same job. In practice they often do not: one includes packing, another does not; one has surveyed the access, another has assumed it.
Put them side by side on those four points before you look at the number at the bottom. Very often the cheapest quote stops being the cheapest as soon as you have made them comparable.