What the job actually involves
A house clearance is the removal of the entire contents of a property, room by room, including the things people forget about: the loft, the garage, the shed, the cupboard under the stairs and whatever is behind the shed. A good clearance ends with an empty, broom-swept property that can be handed to a buyer, a landlord or a solicitor.
The physical work is carrying and loading — furniture down stairs, white goods out of kitchens, decades of boxes out of a loft hatch. The less visible work is sorting: separating what can be reused or donated, what has to go into a specific recycling stream, and what is genuinely waste.
A proper clearance company also does the paperwork. That means a duty of care (your legal responsibility for waste you produce) waste transfer note for every load, issued under a waste carrier registration you can check on a public register.
The four jobs that get called house clearance
Probate clearance is the most sensitive version. It involves a family's belongings, usually on a solicitor's timescale, and it needs discretion as much as it needs a lorry. Anything of obvious value or sentiment is set aside rather than loaded, and the property is left ready to be sold — see probate house clearance.
End of tenancy work is the opposite: fast, unsentimental, and driven by a re-let date. Landlords and agents need a void cleared and swept in days, not weeks — that is landlord clearance.
Hoarded properties are a specialist job. They take longer, need more crew, and often involve conditions that a general clearance team is not equipped for. That is hoarder clearance, and it should always be priced after a visit rather than from a photo.
- Probate and bereavement clearances
- End of tenancy and void clearances
- Downsizing and decluttering
- Pre-sale clearances for estate agents
- Hoarded property clearances
- Single-room and loft clear-outs
Want a number before anyone turns up?
Photos of each room, the loft and the garage gets you one fixed price for the whole property — no hourly rate, no surprises.
What happens to everything
This is the question people most want answered and the one most companies are vaguest about. A clearance load is not one thing: it is furniture, textiles, electricals, metal, and general waste, and each of those has a different route.
Usable furniture, working appliances, bikes and household goods are separated for reuse and donation where they are fit for it — an item re-homed is worth more than the same item recycled. Metal is pulled out for scrap metal recovery. Electricals go under WEEE (anything with a plug or a battery) rules rather than into a mixed load. What is left is sorted at a licensed transfer station.
Across a typical clearance over 80% is diverted from landfill. If a company cannot tell you roughly where your parents' furniture is going, that is worth noticing.
What it costs in Scotland
Reputable operators price by volume — how much of the lorry the contents fill — rather than by the hour or by the item. Ours runs £160 + VAT for a quarter load, £290 for a half, £390 for three quarters and £550 for a full load, with heavy inert (the heavy stuff — rubble, concrete, brick and soil) material like rubble charged by weight at £149 per tonne instead.
In practice a one-bedroom flat is usually a half load at £290, a two or three-bed house is three quarters at £390, and a fully furnished family home is a full load at £550 or more than one load. The full breakdown is in how much a house clearance costs in Scotland.
Be wary of an hourly rate. It transfers all the risk of a slow day onto you, and it gives the crew no reason to be quick.
Five questions worth asking before you book
First: what is your SEPA waste carrier registration number? It takes two minutes to check on the public register, and it is the single best filter. Ours is WCR/R/3002381. Our guide to choosing a licensed carrier explains why it matters — liability for fly-tipped waste follows the waste back to you.
Second: is the price fixed or an estimate? Third: does it include the carrying, or is there an access charge if there are stairs? Fourth: will I get a transfer note? Fifth: who actually turns up — your own crew, or subcontracted labour?
A company that answers all five without hesitating is almost certainly fine. One that will not put a number in writing before the van arrives is a different proposition.
