Complete house clearance

ahfat41

Anybody has used a company for complete house clearance and remove everything. The house has been emptied for over 6 months and the owner recently died recently. Solicitor is executor and is applying for probate. Been advised the house cannot be marketed until probate is granted and to hire a company to do a complete house clearance as it is large three bed house. The beneficiary does not live near and want the house completely cleared of everything. Thanks

cymruchris

Sign up to a local facebook group for the area where the house is and ask for local recommendations for house clearances. I'm guessing it's just a house full of someone's bits and pieces and a load of used furniture?

If there's any decent furniture - you could get the British Heart Foundation to come in and take that first - and then pay someone clear the remainder.

JGB1955

We paid. £750 for my father's house to be cleared. It was worth every penny. We had already removed any sentimental items and all paperwork. I lived 150 miles away and didn't have the time or mental space to organise trip runs, Marketplace sales, skips etc etc.  I asked them to leave the curtains (and any keys that they found, on the mantelpiece) and that was precisely what was left!

poppystar

If you give an indication of where the property is someone on here may well have used a local company.

ahfat41

JGB1955 said:

We paid. £750 for my father's house to be cleared. It was worth every penny. We had already removed any sentimental items and all paperwork. I lived 150 miles away and didn't have the time or mental space to organise trip runs, Marketplace sales, skips etc etc.  I asked them to leave the curtains (and any keys that they found, on the mantelpiece) and that was precisely what 

Just wanted an idea of the cost. The solicitor is going to recommend a company they normally use so I guess it will be a lot more expensive. £750 seems reasonable. It’s my daughters mother in law house. Her husband wants the house cleared completely. 

Linton

AgeUK charged us £240 some years ago for a complete clearance of a large house. They kept anything they thought they could sell.  They did a very good job even running a hoover around before they left.

I believe other charities also provide this service.  It will probably be run locally so you may have to do some investigation.

Savvy_Sue

We paid well over £1000 for a complete clearance, in stages - well, I say 'complete', we'd done quite a bit of work ourselves and some bits and bobs had gone to auction. It was initially 'staged' to make it easier to sell, then the final clearance happened a few months later. The company was recommended by the auction house, they were lovely to work with, and assured us that as little as possible would go to landfill. 

It was a big house, and I did not begrudge them a single penny ... 

KxMx

After my Nan died I paid a firm to clear out her bungalow, after I'd removed personal items and things to go to specific charities.
The removal firm asked permission to sell on some furniture which is a way they keep their prices down.
As others have said, it's absolutely worth every penny. 

MsMoon

JGB1955 said:

We paid. £750 for my father's house to be cleared. It was worth every penny. We had already removed any sentimental items and all paperwork. I lived 150 miles away and didn't have the time or mental space to organise trip runs, Marketplace sales, skips etc etc.  I asked them to leave the curtains (and any keys that they found, on the mantelpiece) and that was precisely what was left!

£750 sounds very good (could you message me the name of the firm for future reference?) - I tried a number of firms and they were all over 2k. I tried BHF but they only took one item. I am now using a friend to do it & wished I hadn't - I have to keep chasing them as they are doing it bit by bit around their schedule. It's painful to watch them carrying out stuff one bit at a time. Talk about slow! You get what you pay for it seems.

BooJewels

We got our recommendation from the estate agent we were using to sell the property, as they use the same chap themselves and were happy to recommend him - so might be an avenue to explore for a recommendation. 

Paid £550 for a large detached house and garage which was very full of a lot of junk, despite already doing a huge amount of sorting ourselves - but there was enough good stuff left that they could sell to offset their costs - took 2 days.   Second, slightly smaller, house and garage in a much better state was £525 - much less to remove, but also much less potentially saleable for them - done in two part day visits.  My sister's just moved and pretty much had all new furniture in her new place and is emptying her old flat ready to sell and will get him to clear it when she's done there too.

Newly_retired

If there are items of value, some auction houses will offer this service. What they can sell will offset the cost.
When we had sorted my parents’ house, we got a local firm who own a junk shop to do the final clearance. This was 20 years ago, but it cost us nothing, as the items they could sell in their shop covered the cost. Mind you, we had already paid for a skip to clear the out-buildings.