House Clearance - how much does it cost?

[somuchrubbish]

Just that really.

In the process of selling my parents home after my last remaining parent (Dad) passed away earlier this year and we have now secured a sale.

My Brother and I intend to go through the house and keep anything either of us would like to keep, and then the rest will need to be got rid of. We are going to hire a skip, I think, and just chuck a lot of stuff that neither of us wants, onto the skip. But we have no way of getting rid of the furniture and white goods.

It is a 3 bed semi so there is not loads and loads of stuff but too much really for us to be trying to get rid of.

We were thinking a house clearance company to come and fetch the furniture?

Has anyone used one recently? If so can you tell me how much we are possibly looking at, cost wise, to get the furniture cleared?

Asked for a quote today. They charge a fee but put everything through a sale house and you get the money from the sales. It’s someone we know and have used before and they’re very honest. They also give you any documents they find and any money.

We’re emptying this one before putting it on the market as it’s probably going to be brought by a property developer anyway.

I arranged for British Heart Foundation to take large items like sofas and wardrobes for £250 then paid £2k for a house clearance company via the council to come and completely empty the 3 bed semi and garage. This was NW London a few months ago.

The house clearance company charged by weight and volume hence why I went to BHF first to get rid of large bulky reusable items.

Well, quite. We live hundreds of miles away and had very little energy left for freecycling room after room of stuff.

Exactly. That was us too.

Locally people have garage sales but you could just advertise it all as free come and collect over a weekend on Facebook. I would imagine most of it will go.

I think this is unlikely to be effective. There are lots of tales of folks not turning up even when they have bought one specific item. The other problem is van hire: if it’s a box of books then fine, but people aren’t going to spend £70 or whatever hiring a van without being sure they want what’s on offer, even if it’s free.

Do you have a St Vincent de Paul Society near you? Also known as St Vincent's? I can recommend them and it's such a great cause. They collect for free and there is a list of what they can't take. They also link to and recommend LoveJunk for items they can't take. The LoveJunk information on the SVdP page might be of particular use to you OP.

Furniture Donation or Collection | St Vincent de Paul Society

Cost depends on what they can sell, including for scrap. Some charities do house clearances. If you live close by its worth going and filling the bins every week and putting clothes out if any charity bags have been left. They usually want furniture and scrap metal items.

I'm in the process of doing this. It's only a 2 bedroom flat though. It's a horrible job. I've just been emptying room by room.

my plan is to leave the bigger furniture items just now, as the estate agent suggested that. But everything else will be gone. Then maybe hire a skip/book a council bully uplift for the rest. Sadly there was a smoker in the house so the furniture etc all stinks of smoke so would unlikely sell etc.

i did consider a house clearance but I can't particularly afford it, and there was money all over the place (almost £1k) and lots of sentimental things like my grans ration books from the war etc that I'm glad I found so I can keep them. But it is very much taking a toll on me. And causing family issues. It's very time consuming and draining

Yeah, I do understand why the charities are fussy about what they take.
It's merely that they are a solution if you want to be able to recycle large items but they are not a solution to getting a full house cleared. For that, generally you only have two choices, put in a lot of work yourself or pay someone.

Charities are in it for the money. They are not free junk removal services. This is why they are "picky" as yes some people will offer them stuff they can sell and make money with, but a lot of people will try to offer them crap that costs them money and effort to dispose of. Some people may think they are offering the charity "good stuff" but in reality it is often junk that no one wants.

I always list things to go on our local swap shop FB page and the local community forums. I turn off comments, say first come first served, must go today etc . Old tech, bikes, scooters , kitchen ware, linens, furniture, books , toys and so on. It is bloody marvellous. Generally 90-100% of it will be taken - but i do live in a studenty area of a small city.

I used British Heat Foundation to clear my mums house. It cost about £800, the cost reflects how much stuff needs to be disposed of rather than sold. They literally took everything so you’d not need a skip as they would take all the rubbish away. Might be worth getting a quote.