Best way to empty house after Mum's passing

janeys

Hi, I'm hoping you can help me or put me in the right direction. Our Mum passed away in November, my sister and I are executors the bungalow is mortgage free. We decided to wait until Easter before we sell the property as I live in Glasgow and Mum's house and my sister live in Kent and I don't have any more holidays from work before April so I can't help. I plan to go down for a week in April to help clear the house out. I have never had to do this and I'm unsure what would be the best way, if I lived closer I would use the ebay/freecycle route but this isn't really an option as my sister works full time and has a family to look after. Mum has got some decent porcelain and bone china but I don't know if it is worth anything. I naively thought house clearance sites would assess the value within the house and give us the money and clear the house but if what I am reading is right you pay them to take the contents away and if you don't remove any valuables that's hard luck. I know a week isn't long but if I can come up with a plan and do some phoning before I go down I think it could be doable and if there was any left overs they would be manageable for my sister. All helpful thoughts welcome.
janey

Yorkshireman99

In the mean time make sure there is insurance cover on the house and that regular visits are made etc.

Sevennotemode

Get a van and do it yourself.

If time is short be brutal and tip anything that you don't want.

You get very little,if anything, for second hand household goods.
So-called house clearance companys quote silly figures of £1,000 plus.

I put an advert on the local freecycle site and one guy who wanted a washing machine came with a van and 2 wheeler truck and cleared the whole lot for free.

Owain_Moneysaver

I've just done this.

Go round the house with binbags and recycling bags and remove all the small rubbish and knick-knacks for the bin. Any old medicines go back to the pharmacist for disposal.

Remove / box up items mentioned in the Will as specific bequests, any sentimental items, any valuables (jewellery over £250 a piece will need to be valued) etc and keep separate. Save any paperwork for probate and any address books / christmas card lists etc if you haven't already worked through this.

That should hopefully leave you with a fairly tidy uncluttered house. If the cooker or freezer are manky get them taken away (often by the council).

http://www.kentreusers.co.uk/services.html say

Clearances due to Bereavement are made free of labour charge

so as long as there's no rubbish for them to remove there shouldn't be anything to pay.

Consider that houses usually appear better with some furniture in to show the purpose and scale of rooms.

FreeBear

Sevennotemode wrote: »

You get very little,if anything, for second hand household goods.
So-called house clearance companys quote silly figures of £1,000 plus.

Agreed with the value of most household items - The alternative to using house clearance companies is to contact local charities. Many of them will come over with a van & man (or two) and cart stuff away for free.

Managed to clear several bookcases full thanks to my local PDSA shop. Other charity shops took clothing & stuff.

Savvy_Sue

You could see if there is a local auction house which will come in and value things, and take away what they think they'll be able to sell. I'm not sure we made much profit on Mum's stuff once we'd paid for their service, but it was an interesting experience (they accidentally included my brother's Brompton bike and gave it very little value, and the most valuable item was the bedroom full of wool but they weren't willing to try and sell it ...)

Having done that, we were reasonably confident there wasn't anything of massive value left, and we then got in some fantastic house clearance people who dealt with the rest in several stages. First all the clutter and nick-nacks went while we marketed the house. Then they did a final clearance just before sale. It cost, but it was worth every penny. Bear in mind we'd done several trips to the tip already - some sites won't let you take a van unless you've pre-registered it; ours won't let vans in at busy times, which seems to be most of the week; and there's a limit to how much lugging and loading the two of you will want to do ...

nom_de_plume

Much depends on the condition of the contents but I was involved in a house clearance for a relative who was in their 90's and had moved into a care home. The vast majority of the contents were of no value and the quickest solution was a 12 yard skip and a heavy hammer to 'flat pack' furniture, etc.

Brighty

When my parents died, I planned to do all the work myself to save cash and maybe make a bit, sell off as much as possible to antique shops, second hand shops, ebay etc. Then take the rest to charity shops, then get a skip to empty the rest of the junk out.

I went down in a van one weekend to take home the furniture I wanted to keep, along with all the personal stuff and jewellery etc. While I was there, I got the letting agent round to take pics and start the ball rolling on getting it rented out. The plan was to then start the selling off and emptying on following weekends.

It didn’t pan out that way in the end

The Fri after that weekend, agent rang to say someone wanted to rent the house, great, that was quick, but wait, they are currently in a hotel and so want/need to move in on Wednesday??

Oh that was a busy Friday.

Found a house clearance company that were free on the Monday, also booked EPC survey for Monday morning as well as Gas safety certificate.

Train down Sunday afternoon, had a real good go through everything to make sure every last photo, keepsake and bit of jewellery etc was gone. Monday morning house clearance company emptied the entire 3 bed bungalow, plus garage, plus shed, took the whole lot away, cost £300, took them less than 2 hours from start to finish, big lorry and 3 blokes, saved so much work and hassle, and not that expensive really when you think a skip is at least £150.

Got gas cert done, EPC done, hopped in dads car and drove it home (sold that to a fella at work a few weeks later). Tuesday, cleaners went in, Wednesday, tenants moved in. Done, Phew.

That was a stressful few days, but we had some very happy tenants, 4 years on and they're still in there. Tenants and agent were amazed we got it done in that timescale, so was I

Brighty

Browntoa

british heart foundation do house clearance


https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating-goods/house-clearance

ThemeOne

I'm just nearing the end of this process, which has been a massive amount of work.

Like the OP I don't live near the property in question, but fortunately had a lot of free time. Even so it took months and a combination of selling stuff on gumtree, giving it away on freecycle and numerous trips to charity shops and the tip.

If I had to do it again, which hopefully I never will, I honestly think I'd be tempted to pay the prices charged by house clearance companies, simply to get it done more easily.

I had two pieces of luck, when I advertised the house clearance on freecycle, one woman took almost everything. There were also a lot of tools to dispose of and I found a charity called TWAM who recycle tools and send them to developing countries - they took nearly all the tools.

British Heart Foundation will take furniture and electrical (they collect) but I found them very picky about what they'll take.

Whichever options you choose, best of luck.

Savvy_Sue

ThemeOne wrote: »

There were also a lot of tools to dispose of and I found a charity called TWAM who recycle tools and send them to developing countries - they took nearly all the tools.

Yes, there was a Tools with a Mission rep near Mum's house - he took tools, plus a fair amount of 'scrap' metal as he said they could recycle it.