Repatriation problems

Hi All

We are a South-African family that moved from South-Africa to Germany in May 2019. In March 2020 we were offered an opportunity to permanently relocate to Scotland (UK). Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world and most countries closed their borders. At the time we were already in the process of making arrangements to relocate, and on very short notice we had to contract a company to move our household goods - we just could not say where to. Due to our future plans, our resident permits in Germany would not be renewed, and when the crisis hit, we had no other option but to return to South-Africa to wait for the world to stabilize. We requested that the moving company must keep our goods in storage until such time as the crisis has been resolved, with the full intention to continue with the relocation process once the world returns to normal. As we all know by now - that is not going to happen soon...

As time went by, it became abundantly clear that our plan to move to the UK would not realize, and we informed the moving company that our goods should be shipped to South Africa instead. Our problem now is that the moving company has quoted three times the original fee to ship our goods to South Africa (almost 3 500 euros more than the average quote we received), and they more than doubled the storage fees (despite a valid quote and agreement between the moving company and ourselves).

We are not in Germany at the moment, and we will not be able to return to Germany without going through the entire Visa application process (a 3-4 month process).

My question is this: Is there any way that we can resolve the dispute (other than paying what they ask)?


Thanks