Has anyone on here sold a stair lift that is no longer needed?

[exexpat]

Have you used any of the 'we buy stair lifts' companies, and was it worth it?

DF died last year and DM moved into sheltered accommodation. I now have the task of clearing and selling their house, which has a five-year-old stair lift. It is in full working order, serviced etc but is very much not a standard size and shape of stair lift (the house is an old listed building).

The company they bought it from doesn't buy back its own stair lifts, but has sent me a pack with advice on advertising it for sale to an individual buyer, which sounds like an awful lot of work, even if you can find someone who needs exactly that size and shape of stair lift, which seems very unlikely in this case. Alternatively, they will remove it for free at their convenience, or you can pay them to remove it if you are in a hurry.

I have also found some companies offering to buy any stairlift, but I am wondering if it is worth the hassle of dealing with a third party - do they pay a decent amount? Any advice or experience welcome.

We ended up having to pay someone to take it away. It was also a few years old and on ax straight staircase.

Couldn't sell it and we didn't want people coming into the house and knowing it was empty but not yet cleared out.

If they will pick it up for free I'd go for that.

A friend of mine has just had to pay someone to take a really quite new stairlift away, and we had to do the same when my grandmother died a decade ago. It's shockingly wasteful but there just didn't seem to be a viable secondhand market for them when we looked - I assumed it would have changed, but apparently not.

Not quite the same thing but we managed to dispose of a large electric wheelchair on Facebook marketplace

We sold for next to nothing on eBay.

We were lucky and the guy who installed it bought it back for more than he normally does as it was only used for a month sadly.

I left it in, I told the buyers I would remove if they wished but it cost x amount so if they felt it maybe useful in the future they may like to keep it. The buyer despite being young chose to keep it.

We gave it away on Facebook.

The house I moved into came with one.
I gave mine to my friend's grandmother who paid the company who had installed it to move it to her house and adjust as needed
It was much cheaper for her than buying a new one.

We are trying to get rid of my grandads, 5 months old and was supposed to be a new model

Totally ripped him off, we've been told its about 5 years old now so no company will touch it. We are trying to give it away

We had to pay to get ours removed

Thanks for the input, everyone. It sounds like I may well just end up getting them to take it away for free, if they will, but I have sent off a couple of enquiries to places offering to buy stair lifts just to see what they say. I suspect at 5 years old they may well not be interested. At least my parents got more use out of it than many do.

Our first house had a working lift in it, went from the dining room into the main bedroom (the previous owner was very elderly.) We got in touch with the local council who said they could reuse it, they removed it and replaced the ceiling / upstairs floor.

Maybe try that, or advertise on ebay or free cycle?

We got £250 cash for scrap for my parents one (cost £7000 a couple of years earlier) . The company came & took it out. They said we would have got more if it had been a straight one as they can be reused.

There is a company near Leeds called Leodis who buy unwanted stairlifts - 0113 265 2540.
Not sure if they are countrywide or just local, might be worth a call?

Just coming back to the thread to update: I contacted a couple of firms, only one got back to me and offered £200 for the stair lift (five year old Acorn curved one), so I thought it was worth giving them a try. They came today, on time, very efficient, paid cash up front, dismantled everything very quickly and were in and out in an hour or so.

The company I used was webuyanystairlift.com and based on my experience today I would be happy to recommend them. They are based in Yorkshire but they seem to cover a lot of the country on a two-week rolling schedule.