The time to make final plans and schedule our relocation has come. First we have to decide if we were going to bring all our furniture, so we asked for quotations for the move by sea container. Costs vary from 5000 to 8000 euro (7 to 10 thousand us dollars). That is a lot of money. We have been checking on the internet how much furniture costs in the Philippines. We found out that those prices were much lower than in Europe. It wasn?t the same durable quality like we were used to have in Holland but still they were quit good. So the plan is that we were going to bring only a few smaller items which were easy to pack into boxes for shipment.
We know a Dutch-Filipino couple who are running a ?balikbayan boxes? service. (a service to send boxes from Overseas Filipino Workers from Holland and surrounding countries to the Philippines). We have contacted them and asked if they could assist in moving our things and how much it was going to cost. After agreeing they supplied us with a number of large boxes to pack our valuables, textiles, clothing and other items.
It is also time to ask the Dutch tax department about all the details concerning the early pension money I am going to receive monthly and about the departure premium from my last employer. Those who are interested in how this goes should mail me for details.
We are sending letters to suppliers for water, energy, cable, phone, subscriptions, insurances etc. to end our subscriptions. In the mean time we have started packing already, and putting adds in newspapers and on the internet to sell our furniture and other goods we were not bringing. We also have told and prepared our family, friends and neighbors about our departure from Holland.
In the mean time we are inquiring in the Philippines about real estate to buy or to rent temporarily. We?ve found several websites to that effect but decided to rent first and later ?on location? we will be looking for properties to buy. One of our nieces looked in Metro Manila to see many houses for rent, and send us pictures with renting details. We have found our house in Antipolo City this way. The rental contract is for one year which gives us some time to look for other places the moment we are over there.
We are going to bring our pet cat Emily to the Philippines. We see her as our child, since we don?t have children of our own, and she is part of our family. We have found a company, specialized in live stock transport by plane. They also work for several zoo?s and other animal organizations. She is going to travel a few days after us by KLM. Had we known, we should have travelled with KLM ourselves on the same day and bring our cat in the same plane. We could have saved ourselves a lot of paperwork and time.
earlier comment:
raquel roldan
rcroldan_2000@yahoo.com
Submitted on 2009/03/29 at 7:44pm
We are currently in Belgium and are thinking about moving back to Philippines. My husband?s family have houses in the Netherlands. We have been looking for services of balikbayan boxes. Is it possible to know the contact information of your Dutch-Filipino friends who run a balikbayan box service. Do they also offer their services for Belgians or strictly from Netherlands only.
Answer from Jan
Hello Raquel,
Nice of you to leave a comment and ask me a question. That?s where this blog is about: To try to help people who are planning to move to the Philippines as well.
As far as I know they also come to Belgium and aslo a part of Germany to pick up boxes for transport to the Philippines. At the moment they are visiting the Philippines themselves. In a few weeks they will be home again. You may contact them at the following cell phone number 0032654320432, The name is Rob and/or Flora Schuyt. Tell them please that you have got the number from me.
Filipino time:
Hi,
I want to ask if you can help me ship some things from the Philippines to the Netherlands. My dutch husband and I want to bring some of our things to the Netherlands and we don’t know who to contact for this shipment.
Thanks in advance .
Hi Edith,
Good that you find my website and check it out.
As an answer on your question you may send a text to the balikbayan service in The Netherlands. They are also sending things to the Netherlands as far as I know. maybe they have some space. For just smaller items and single boxes you can also use Philippine Postal Services.
Rob and Flora Schuyt
Send your text to: 0031654320432 or 0031621449860
landline Netherlands: 0031332866126
or in the Philippines to: Cebu City: 032 4144995(fax) 032 4143284 or cell: 09272250172
Hello there, just stopped by doing some research for my site. Truly more information that you can imagine on the web. Not quite what i was looking for, but very nice site. Have a good day.
hi jan,
we are moving to manila very soon, in fact we’re packing up our house next week. a reputable moving company will be shipping our stuff but we just found out that since we are considered returning resident we are liable to pay for duties/tax on our shipment which is 50 percent of the assessed value (the value is dependent completely on the customs officials assessment and may not necessarily be the true value of the shipment!). knowing that a lot of our things have more sentimental value rather than monetary value i dread to think that i have to pay for them again when they are really old and well used… i have heard of situations where you can be exempted from paying the duties – do you have any advice on this? i have to say, that selling our things is out of the question as we don’t have time to do that and we have a lot of furniture…
i appreciate your help.