House Clearance Recommendation - Birmingham area?

MsMoon

Can anyone recommend a good trustworthy house clearance firm in the Birmingham area? And what would be the ballpark cost for a three bedroom house? Thanks in advance.

FatherTireseus

It wasn't Birmingham specifically (Walsall area),  but I used a local charity house clearance service when I had to clear my mum's house 5 years ago.  They offered two types of service: one where they just came and took anything they thought would sell in their store, which was free.  But obviously still leaves you with the other stuff.  The second service was where they cleared out the whole house.  There were two teams of 2 men who took everything (and when you still want to clean what's left you realise all you can sit on is the floor, the stairs or the loo - I'd take a folding chair with me if I had to do it again!).

The estate agent we were selling mum's house through offered their contact which I assumed was a man with a van - the estate agent had the keys so he did a survey through them and his quote came in at less than a third of the charity.   Possibly a bit of that was because the charity was VAT registered and he probably wasn't.   But as a family we decided to go with the charity as we had more confidence in them disposing of things properly. 

From memory I think we used St Giles hospice but having just looked at their website it appears they're not currently offering the service and Birmingham may be a bit outside their area, but I would suggest looking at a charity house clearance service, if they are operating. 

As for cost: for a small 3 bed semi but with a loft rammed full of things (mum had lived in the house for almost 50 years) and a shed similarly full of stuff: we paid £900, than included VAT. I'd expect that to be more like £1,000 or more now.

MsMoon

 Thanks for the advice - I will ask the estate agent I am thinking of using if they do that service.

poppystar

Yes I can but will need to look back through the paperwork and get back to you. In terms of cost, for a four bed in South Birmingham the quotes I got ranged from £400 to well over a £1k. Fortunately for me the cheapest was the friendliest and seemingly most efficient - and proved to be so. They were also very accommodating and did it in two lots as I needed to keep some furniture in until the last minute as I was travelling up and staying the night, so they split the job over two days. Very happy to recommend them. They didn’t clean though as I know some of the more expensive ones would have done - they swept up any mess of course but didn’t do extra cleaning as some do.

Update: I’ve sent you a message as I’m never quite sure if specific recommendations are allowed in the forum. (If anyone can tell me if it’s ok I will post the information on here in case it helps anyone else)

MsMoon

Thank you, appreciate it!

JGB1955

Just to add to the 'expected price' scenario.  I paid £750 for my father's three bedroom barn conversion to be cleared at quite short notice after Christmas 2019.  The local landfill sites were closed, so it was a 'close run thing'.  Empty house 18 hours before completion!

Savvy_Sue

Our experience is too long ago to be a specific recommendation, and not Birmingham, but we found our clearance company through the auction house we'd engaged to help with estate valuation. There were no 'Old Masters' hidden under the bed, but there were some 'interesting' pieces of furniture, and even Mum's engagement ring was worth more than we'd thought (and none of us wanted it.)

So the auction house agreed what they would take (interestingly, things with a high value were not necessarily of interest to them!) and then the clearance company went in. They were aiming to send as little as possible to landfill, so would try and sell some things, recycle others, and they were happy for us to continue sorting before and after they did their first pass (we wanted to 'stage' the house for sale.) But for example when we found a local charity (Tools for Self-Reliance) who would take all Dad's tools and metal filing cabinets - which might have had a scrap value - they had no objection. 

After their first pass, you would not have recognised the place. They also did a thorough clean. It was helpful to have a place to sit, and to be able to make tea, and we told them to leave the kettle and mugs behind even after the final pass, because we knew builders were going in!

One thing to be aware of is that a good company may be booked up well in advance. We were still waiting for the house sale to reach exchange, and had left it half-furnished in case the sale fell through. Then I got the call that they could either finish clearing within a week, or they'd be unable to finish off for three weeks: what did I want to do? 

With my heart in my mouth, I said to finish the job. Cannot tell you how happy I was to hear from my solicitor that we were exchanging and completing the day after this happened!!!