Estimate changes: document the new scope before the truck is loaded

This file is about the revision event, not the original label. Start from the survey packet you already accepted: rooms counted, bulky pieces named, access notes, packing requests. A later number is only reviewable if you can point to what was added to that packet.

If those facts were never written down, later changes are hard to audit because you cannot prove what the original price covered. Photograph the signed first document before anyone edits it. Date the copy. That snapshot is the baseline for every later addendum.

When the shipment or access changes, ask the mover to survey the difference, list the added articles or services, and issue a written revision before loading. FMCSA's rights handbook explains that a binding estimate can be reaffirmed if the mover does not provide a new binding estimate or obtain written agreement to convert it before loading. Keep the original, the revision, and the time each was presented.

Compare three fields on every revision: what was added, who requested it, and whether the estimate type stayed the same. A conversion from binding to non-binding, or a jump that is not mapped to listed extras, is a different contract. Do not initial a blank or partially complete form because the crew is waiting.

After the bill of lading is issued, the mover may collect for additional services you requested that were not in the estimate, and for impracticable operations defined in the carrier's tariff. Those are not hidden synonyms for 'we underbid.' They should map to a requested extra or to a tariffed access problem at pickup or delivery.

At delivery, charges for impracticable operations cannot exceed 15 percent of all other charges due; the remainder is billed later. If a destination charge is explained only as 'access' with no tariff definition, ask which tariff item applies and whether it was knowable at estimate time. A long driveway visible on the survey is not a surprise discovered at the curb.

Create one page that records each change: date, who asked, what was added, the document that captured it, and whether you agreed before loading. That log is more useful in a later dispute than a memory of a rushed conversation in a driveway.

If the company will not put a material change in writing, do not treat the verbal number as the new estimate. The due-diligence job is to preserve a chain from survey to bill of lading to delivery invoice. Gaps in that chain are the company's problem to explain, not yours to fill in after the goods are on the truck.