Anyone here used a house clearance company?

[Pegs11]

Hi, just wondered if anyone here has experience of paying for a house clearance company to come and take away all your stuff?

I’m told that you pay a fee for the collection, but they will then try and sell your stuff if they can, and if so, give you some money back.

I’m not sure how often this works in reality and whether you can end up in profit, so to speak.

Would appreciate any insight / experiences. Thank you

I haven't used such a company OP, but I have a friend who does some casual work for a house clearing chap.
How their set up works is, the clearance owner quotes a figure to clear the house of stuff they want removed.
He offers a figure/figures for items that he believes he can sell on and get a reasonable sum for.
The home owner is at liberty to haggle at this point, should they wish, or they can choose to keep all saleable items and just have other stuff removed.
The home owner then pays the cost of house clearance minus sum agreed for saleable items which have been removed, by mutual agreement.
He has been known to occasionally revisit home owners , after a sale, if considerably more money was made on an item which he had assessed, and give them a percentage of the extra.
It doesn't happen often though as he has been doing it for many years and has a pretty good idea of what things sell for.
Hope that helps.

We've just got £500 back from the vendor of our house to pay for house clearance as he didn't move all of his stuff out. I had had a vague idea about selling or charity shopping some of the contents as I thought it might go in a skip instead but DH pointed out the house clearance people need to make their money somewhere!

I'd be interested to hear how others have found it though as we've yet to get this organised!

My DPs had to do this for a family friend they were executor for when they died.

It was a local auction house that came in, cleared everything, sold what they could and disposed of the rest. There was a fee involved for the clearance and they took a cut of the auction prices too. I don't know about making a "profit" as such, but as they'll literally sell anything, including the 10 year old electric kettle, it soon added up.

Thanks everyone, that is helpful! To be fair I’d probably be happy with no money back from the clearance, just to save myself the stress of having to move everything myself and then find a place to put it.

The one we're using came out to have a look yesterday. They don't think there's anything of value there (this isn't a surprise!). They charge £120 per hour plus any council tip charges for getting rid of big things - we'll incur this for disposing of the ancient appliances. It'll probably take 1-2 hours to clear house.

Having seen my Mum faffing around for weeks clearing elderly relative's houses I think this is far preferable!

some charity shops will take a lot for free....dont use BHF....they are very very picky and agree to clear stuff and then dont...better are the homeless charities etc....

@RidingMyBike thanks for your reply. I think I might try and sell a few bits myself, like, maybe enough to make back the money I’ll be spending on house clearance! I have a freezer that’s relatively new, a good quality superking size bed, a large wooden dresser, a big shelving unit, a dining table and chairs, two armchairs, a child’s wardrobe … that kind of thing. All really nice stuff! I guess it depends on whether people are willing to pay for and collect them (they’d need a van) and how much hassle it causes me, too. But at least I might make a bit of money. Everything else, I can get the house clearance company to take. And it will probably be a relief to not be burdened with so many possessions.

I know when we cleared DH's Grandad's house they were very interested in the books. MIL kept saying "but they're only ordinary paperbacks". Apparently it's common that older people hide cash in books, so always worth going through them.

Good luck @Pegs11! Yep, I thought about doing that and also Olio/Freecycle to get rid of some of it but couldn't stand the hassle involved (we're living 25 mins from the house and I travel for work) or the difficulties being there multiple times to meet people collecting.

I did a lot of this though decluttering our own house last summer before our first move - I tried to get x amount of things listed on FB Marketplace each week and x number of bags to the charity shop.

@RidingMyBike yeah… having to go back to the house x number of times could be problematic, and perhaps more hassle than it’s worth. Maybe I’ll set aside a day and tell everyone who wants to reserve an item that they have to come and collect on that day. And if they can’t, it goes to clearance.

I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d need to employ a clearance company to empty my house… but in a way it will be a relief. You know what they say about your possessions owning you!

Yes, the old house was easier as there was outside covered space where you could leave stuff out for collection - so someone saying they'd pick up 'tomorrow evening' not a problem as could leave it out and not have to worry about hanging around listening for the doorbell for hours.

I did a bit of Olio at our rental house getting rid of DD's outgrown stuff and so many msgs from people who couldn't find the house or who were running late or wanted to change the day.

If you can do a blitz day of getting people to collect stuff then that sounds worthwhile!

I was going to send the appliances left behind in the house we've bought to a local reuse community thing which provides families with cheap household items - they took my old laptop last year. But the appliances are ancient and filthy so house clearance it's got to be!

Ours was yesterday. It cost about £760 in the end. None of it was saleable (not a surprise as it was the stuff left behind by vendor when we bought house). Some stuff was dropped to a local charity shop. The rest was taken to the tip. About a third of that cost was tip charges for several appliances and various heavy garden things.

It's not as bad as it looks - we were expecting to have to pay to get rid of the appliances anyway and the vendor paid us £500 to clear the stuff he didn't manage.

I used one to clear my DM's apartment and they were brilliant. I didn't get any cash back but I do hope they could have sold some of it on as it was in fairly decent condition but not worth very much. Everything was cleared including carpets in a couple hours. They also sent me photos proving the work. They were a local company to her city and I was pleased to support them.

But when it's been my stuff and a friend's DM's stuff I've advertised for free on Facebook and everything has gone! You could even just post it and leave it outside to see if people pick it up!

There are two different types of companies. One just chucks everything into the back of the lorry and dumps it. The other will take the stuff away and sell it for you. I wouldn’t call them house clearance.

I hope this message finds you well. Based on my recent experience, I would like to recommend a reliable removal company in the area. I recently used Junk Taki for my move, and I was extremely satisfied with their service.

Junk Taxi provided a professional and efficient house rubbish removal service. The team was punctual, courteous, and handled all my belongings with care. They made the entire moving process smooth and stress-free. Additionally, their pricing was reasonable and transparent, with no hidden fees. I highly recommend reaching out to Junk Taxi for your upcoming move.

Hi, I own Our House Clearance. If you head over to our website www.ourhouseclearance.co.uk we have loads of clearance guides and information to help you answer some of your questions.

We aim to provide an amazing service for a reasonable cost.

Hopefully we'll hear from you and can help relieve some of the stress that comes with a house clearance.

Take Care
Shaun