The overseas handover date, the availability of the person taking over, the household's phased dates, and the case steps themselves. Qualifying employment abroad also has timing rules, generally one continuous year within the relevant preceding three-year period, which needs a case-specific review.
Identify the date that controls the rest
In most staged moves one date drives everything, often the point when the successor overseas is genuinely ready. Fix that first, then set the case review, travel and family arrivals against it. Keep petition approval, visa issuance where applicable, admission and permission to begin work as separate calendar entries, since treating them as one event is how households commit to leases prematurely.
Build slack for return trips. Add a second controlling date alongside the successor's readiness: the point beyond which the foreign entity's evidence of activity would start to look thin. Continuity is proved by records generated month by month, so a quiet quarter that nobody notices at the time becomes a gap that has to be explained later.
Decide now what will be produced each month and who checks that it exists. Hypothetical example: a museum-services firm's plan turns on a successor being ready in March, and a second calendar entry is set for a quarterly review of invoices, payroll and filings, which catches a two-month lull in the autumn while it can still be addressed by ordinary business activity rather than by explanation.