Starting up a House clearance/recycle business

Aidan82

Hi,


I am looking for some advice/help/information, me a friend and a couple of family members are looking into starting up a House Clearance business, along with offering other services, garden clearance, carpet cleaning etc.


I have only just started to look into this, and seen that we will need to obtain a waste deposal license, and liability insurance, along with vehicles, & business insurance for these vehicles as well.


Could anyone help at all with anything else that we will need to consider, before trying to start up, any information would be greatly received, we know it is going to be difficult, but want to give this a go.


Many Thanks
Aidan

pooch

Aidan82 wrote: »

Hi,


I am looking for some advice/help/information, me a friend and a couple of family members are looking into starting up a House Clearance business, along with offering other services, garden clearance, carpet cleaning etc.


I have only just started to look into this, and seen that we will need to obtain a waste deposal license, and liability insurance, along with vehicles, & business insurance for these vehicles as well.


Could anyone help at all with anything else that we will need to consider, before trying to start up, any information would be greatly received, we know it is going to be difficult, but want to give this a go.


Many Thanks
Aidan

What do you plan to do with the items you collect from the house clearance?
Dump them? That'll cost you
What most people try to do is sell the better items - where/how do you plan to do that?

Take a look at The Great British Benefits Handout (tonight, C5 @ 9:00pm) - there's a bloke on there trying to start a second hand business and the issues he's having with the cost of a shop etc.

If you are going to do gardening & claening, you'll need these machines/tools too and appropriate insurance.

How will you and your friend (and family members) operate? i.e. as employees of a limited company? Or is one of you going to be the gaffer and employ the others? Or maybe a partnership agreement?

Where will you operate from with all this equipment? If from home, will your landlord/mortgage lender/local council etc allow this?

Probably best to put a full business plan together and then get someone in the know to go through it with you and see what is missing then.

paddyrg

A lot of what we used to call junk shops will do house clearances for cheap or free as that's their primary source of stock. That's hard to undercut, so you need some kind of model to profit from clearances - perhaps knowing good furniture from bad, for instance. Maybe you can eBay some bits you find, that'll help too - but could easily become a job in itself. You'll also have to consider tipping costs for the rest - businesses don't get a free ride.

Other services you could offer might include 'man with van' type of stuff. Probably very similar set of requirements and kit, and may help turn slow days into money days if you can find anything regular.

Wages, etc., will be a big bone of contention if working with family and friends. Things that sound like trivial details in prep become real issues when there's money involved, so you need to all be on the same page going into this - on the same page to the extent that you write it down and all agree it. It'll save you so many guaranteed tears down the road ;-)

Savvy_Sue

Having not long had a house clearance done and found an excellent company to do it, I'd suggest making very good contacts with a local auction house and all the business recycling facilities you can find.

Be prepared for some big and unpleasant jobs.

Be ready to give over and above customer service and leave the house looking like something from House Beautiful.