Your reservation · When plans change
A closing slips. A lease falls through. The new place is not ready. Almost every mover answers this with “policies vary” and leaves you to find out the rest later — so here is how ours actually works, and which of the two choices in front of you costs less.
Quick answer
Rescheduling and cancelling are different decisions with different outcomes. Under LIOO Moving’s Terms both are available before the move date, and deposit eligibility depends on the timing. Deposits are non-refundable once the move is 72 hours or less away, and cancelling on the day, after the crew is dispatched, or after the movers arrive may cost you the deposit and leave you responsible for the minimum service charge. If your date is wobbling, moving it is usually the cheaper move — and calling early is worth more than anything else you can do.
People use the two words interchangeably when they call. The Terms do not, and the difference is the single biggest factor in what this costs you.
Rescheduling keeps the reservation alive and moves it to another date. Your deposit stays attached to a move that is still going to happen. Cancelling ends the reservation, and what happens to the deposit then depends on when you cancel.
So if the honest answer is “I am still moving, just not on the 14th,” say that when you call — because that is a reschedule, and it is a different conversation from ending the booking. A surprising number of people cancel a move they fully intend to make three weeks later, because cancelling felt like the tidier thing to do.
If the move is still happening, move the date. Do not end the booking.
This is where most of the confusion lives, and it is worth being precise about.
Your deposit is 25% of the estimate, and under the Terms it is credited toward your final invoice. Credited means it comes off what you owe when the move happens — it was never an extra charge sitting on top of the job. That is the normal path, and it is what happens when a move goes ahead on its original date or a rescheduled one.
Refunded is a different thing entirely: money coming back to you because no move is going to happen. The Terms treat that as timing-dependent, and they set one hard boundary — deposits are non-refundable once the scheduled move is 72 hours or less away. Outside that window, the Terms say deposit eligibility depends on the timing of the request rather than guaranteeing a refund, so it is a question to ask rather than an outcome to assume.
Why it matters which word you use
A deposit can be entirely non-refundable and still be fully useful to you — because it is credited against a move you are still going to make. The two words describe different outcomes, and reaching for the wrong one on the phone leads people to make the more expensive choice.
There is no single cancellation rule. The Terms describe a sequence, and your exposure grows at each step.
| When you cancel | What the Terms say |
|---|---|
| More than 72 hours before the move | Cancelling or rescheduling is available before the move date, and deposit eligibility depends on the timing of the request. |
| Inside 72 hours | Deposits are non-refundable once the scheduled move is 72 hours or less away. |
| Same day | May result in forfeiture of the deposit and responsibility for the minimum service charge. |
| After the crew is dispatched | Same treatment — the crew is already on the road to you. |
| After the movers arrive | Same treatment, and see the section on stopping a move below. |
Two things to read carefully there. The Terms say these later cancellations may result in forfeiture — that is the actual wording, and it is not the same as saying they always will. And the exposure is not only the deposit: it can include responsibility for the minimum service charge, which on a local move is 2.5 hours as standard, or 3 hours on weekends, same-day bookings and moves 25 or more miles from downtown. Our guide to why a final bill differs from the estimate covers how those minimums work on a job that does go ahead.
The practical read: the ladder is why an early phone call is worth real money. Nothing about your situation improves by waiting to see whether the closing comes through.
Subject to availability, you may move your reservation to another future date. Three things are worth knowing before you do.
The part almost nobody expects
Under the Terms, a confirmed date change does not extend or restart the deposit refund window. Rescheduling from the 14th to the 28th does not hand you a fresh 72-hour clock measured against the new date. If you later cancel outright, the window is not reset by the reschedule. This is the single most counterintuitive rule in this article, and it is the reason a reschedule should be a genuine plan rather than a way to buy time on a decision.
You can. The Terms are explicit that you may stop services at any time while a move is in progress. What follows is equally explicit.
What you owe is the greater of two numbers: the applicable minimum, or everything performed up to the moment you stopped it. The crew then ceases work and leaves — it is an ending, not a pause, and they will not wait while a situation gets resolved. And where a move cannot be completed because of your action, your inaction, or a misunderstanding of hourly billing, the minimum still applies and the deposit may be forfeited.
Worth understanding the “greater of” construction, because it works in both directions. Stop a job forty minutes in and you are at the minimum, not forty minutes. Stop one six hours in and you owe the six hours, not the minimum.
This one gets its own clause, and it is the only place in this article where the wording is definitive rather than conditional. Most moving services are billed hourly unless something else is agreed in writing, and the Terms put the responsibility for understanding that on the customer. Turn the crew away at the door on the basis that you expected a fixed price, and the deposit will be forfeited and the minimum service charge will still apply.
That is a costly way to discover how your quote was built. It is also entirely avoidable: the hourly basis, the crew size and the applicable minimum are all on the written quote before you pay anything.
The Terms address this directly. For 60 days after your move — or after any cancellation or stoppage — you agree not to hire, solicit or pay a LIOO crew member to do moving work outside the company, and specifically not to end a booking in order to pay the crew directly and sidestep what is owed.
If that happens, the Terms state the consequences plainly: you remain liable for the full charges that would have applied, you forfeit any damage protection, and you are responsible for reasonable attorney fees and collection costs. The damage-protection point is the one people tend to miss — an arrangement made directly with a crew member sits outside the company’s protection entirely.
Everything above concerns the reservation changing. If your move is going ahead as planned and you want the sequence between your deposit and the crew’s arrival, that is a different article: what happens after you book.
Dispatch answers 24/7. Tell us whether you need a different date or need to end the booking, and we will tell you exactly what applies to your reservation.
It depends entirely on when. The Terms set one hard boundary at 72 hours: inside it, deposits are non-refundable. Outside it, they tie the outcome to the timing of your request rather than promising money back — so treat it as a question for the call, not an assumption. And if you are still moving, just on a different date, rescheduling is the route that keeps the deposit working for you.
If the move is still going to happen, almost always yes. Rescheduling keeps the reservation alive and your deposit stays credited toward the move. Cancelling ends the booking and puts the deposit into timing-dependent territory. The mistake we see is people cancelling a move they fully intend to make a few weeks later, when moving the date was the cheaper option.
No — and this is the rule that catches people out. A confirmed date change buys you a later move, not a later deadline; the refund clock is not reset against your new date. So a reschedule works best as a real plan, not as a way to postpone deciding whether you are moving at all.
Possibly. The Terms allow for a reservation change fee but publish no amount, so ask what applies to your change rather than assuming either way. Separately, the price of the move itself can shift — a different date or a different address can change availability and crew size, and those feed the quote.
You can stop at any point. What you owe is then whichever is larger — the applicable minimum, or the work actually performed up to that moment. A job stopped early lands on the minimum; one stopped late lands on the hours. The crew stops work and leaves rather than waiting, so it is an ending rather than a pause. Where the stoppage traces back to a misunderstanding of hourly billing, the minimum still applies and the deposit may be forfeited.
Everything on this page describes LIOO Moving’s published Terms of Service. It is not a statement of Georgia law and not a description of how other moving companies handle cancellations — those vary, and the terms that govern your move are the ones in the contract you signed.
Your next step
When to bring in the pros: stairs and long carries, heavy or fragile pieces (pianos, safes, glass), a building that requires a COI, or a timeline that slipped. See how a LIOO crew runs it →