Re: DIY Moving

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I know the topic of this thread  is 'Who did you use to move?' and seeing that we haven't moved yet I guess that this post this could be regarded as off-topic, so feel free to nuke it, Scott! 

Anyway, we're planning to do the move ourselves.
We can get a 20 foot container from Darwin to Pasir Gudang (JB) for $AU1,600. The shipping company will deliver the container to our house and we load it ourselves.

A friend of ours in JB is a shipping agent and will a organise the paperwork for us. This includes permits for all electrical goods. He has sent us some sample documents and given us instructions on how to pack, label and arrange items within the container to expedite customs clearance. It's all pretty straight forward. For each electrical item we have been asked to specify:

Item name, Brand & Serial No (where applicable), voltage, country of manufacture.

His advice is that most electrical items do get approved, but obscure brands originating in China often get rejected. He has therefore asked us for a preliminary list of electrical items that we intend to bring, so he can weed it out and we can include the items in our lawn sale before we leave.

I found a very handy program that can help you estimate if your belongings will fit in 20 foot container, or if you need a bigger one. The software is licensed, but you can download it for a 20 day trial, free of charge. That should be enough time to roughly work out how much container space you need. It worked well for us and we identifed that we need to leave a few items behind or upgrade to a 40-footer! I think we'll stick with the 20-footer and take this opportunity to get rid of some junk 

The software can be found here:   
http://www.softtruck.com/Container_Loading_Software_download.htm

Our friend also advised us to leave all our DVD movies behind  , as many of them may be rejceted and it can take years to get them through the censorship board. Music DVDs (concerts etc) are OK and so are music CDs and LPs. 

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I don't believe that the customs process is any different for DIY packaging; the documentation is the same. Our friend, the shipping agent, cannot guarantee that he will have a 'friendly' customs officer on duty when our container arrives. So we have decided not to take the risk. We don't want to start our new life in MY having been pulled up for attempting to violate customs regulations (no sense of adventure, I know  ).

Guidelines on the MY customs web site clearly state that all film material (including DVDs) must be reviewed by the censor board (@ RM3 per movie - we have about 600 of them). Most of our movies originate in Australia, where film censorsip is fairly relaxed, compared to MY. I think it is a fair bet that the majority of the movies would not pass MY censorship due to occasional nudity and language issues. Our collection of movies is nothing out of the ordinary; just what any movie buff would have. An example would be The Last Tango In Paris, which I consider a great movie (piece of art), but it would never be allowed in MY, or it would be so badly MYtilated by the censors, that it would lose its meaning.

It's not a big issue and we have already started bringing the hard-to-get movies and 'treasures' with us in our luggage when we visit MY. And, it's time to upgrade to Blu-ray anyway.       

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hi,

Golfer, I've split the topic so that we can have this one for DIY moving, and the ways to do it.

There's a few other posts on DIY moving which I'll locate and add-in later.

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Hi,

I think I read somewhere that you are allowed to bring in £10,000 (or was it US$) of personal possessions tax free.

Does anyone know who calculates the value - or is it fairly relaxed?

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Hi Seaview,

I haven't come across any limits on the value of your personal posessions. The only restrictions I'm aware of are that they must be 'personal' belongings (what you could reasonably be expected to own as part of you household) and they must have been used for at least 3 months.

Poul

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hi,

I have the same information as Golfer. No monetary limit but used personal possessions.

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thanks that's good - perhaps I'm confused with the Panama visa