Considerations When Choosing Self Storage Facilities

Let’s suppose you have the luxury of several self storage facilities near you to choose from. Each has its own benefits, some have promised very cheap deals, at least at the start of the contract, and you want to know where is the best place to put your money. There are many questions to ask and things to consider, which we will seek to address here.

First of all, you need to form an appraisal of the basic service you are getting. Will the storage facility look after your belongings properly with climate controlled surroundings, and tight security and CCTV? Do the opening hours work around your schedule? Does the remoteness of one facility count it out over another that is closer, or does it represent a significant cost saving, including when transport costs are added? These are fairly standard questions you need to be asking yourself to start of with.

However, there is another level of complexity at the contract level, where you will need to focus on what you are paying the storage company, when they need to be paid and what size of installments. You need to be clear whether the quote you have in your hand includes or excludes tax. And you need a full understanding of where things stand with regard to deposit, insurance and any discount rates that are on offer. The deposit to be paid, if any, should at least be quoted fairly straightforwardly.

Insurance is a slightly wider area and may need further conversation with your storage provider to get a grasp their requirements. Much of it is down to value of your possessions and whether they are already insured. It may be the case that you already have a policy in place which covers storage under these circumstances, so there is no need to pay anything extra. However, if that’s not the case your storage company will want you to engage in an insurance contract via them, so that in the eventuality of a problem the lines of responsibility can be easily drawn. The insurance add-on will ultimately mean a reasonable extra monthly charge to the quoted rate.

There is a fairly good chance you have been drawn to a facility because they have been advertising a crazy low rate for the first month of storage, or other such incentives for choosing them as your storage provider. They can often afford to do this because customers usually spend more time making use of their storage facility than they originally intend to. This phenomenon is widely talked about. So you will need to diligently check that your understanding of when the full rate will start applying is correct, because it is very likely that you may stay in storage longer than originally envisaged. And to that end, you will need to check the notice period for leaving the facility is reasonable and what you thought it was.

So quite a few things to measure up here, but it’s all important for ensuring that you are not caught out by something you weren’t expecting on practical or financial fronts.

Posted in: Storage Info