This is written for solicitors, executors and anyone administering an estate who needs a property cleared and wants to know what a competent firm should be providing.

Clearance is a barely regulated trade. The barrier to entry is a van, and the difference between a professional outfit and a man with a Transit is invisible from a website. The list below is what to ask for, and why each one matters when an estate is involved.

1. A waste carrier licence you can check yourself

Anyone transporting waste commercially must be registered with the Environment Agency. The register is public and free to search, so a legitimate firm will give you their number without hesitation.

Why it matters for an estate specifically: if waste is fly-tipped, enforcement traces it back to the property it came from. The householder carries a duty of care for how their waste is disposed of, and in a probate clearance the householder is the estate. A cheap clearance that ends in a lay-by becomes the executor’s problem, not the contractor’s.

2. A waste transfer note for every collection

This is the document that discharges the duty of care. It records what was taken, who took it and where it went. It is the paperwork that answers the question “can you show the contents were disposed of lawfully?” if anyone ever asks.

A firm that does not issue transfer notes as standard is not set up for estate work.

3. A fixed price agreed before the day

Not an hourly rate. Not a figure that moves once the van is loaded.

Hourly pricing puts the contractor’s interest directly against the estate’s, and it makes the final cost impossible to report to beneficiaries in advance. A fixed price quoted from photographs or a visit is the only basis on which an executor can plan.

Our guide prices are published rather than quoted on request – most house clearances fall between £650 and £1,250 depending on property size, access and contents.

See our full price list

4. A clear line between clearing and valuing

A clearance firm should not be valuing the contents it is about to remove. The conflict is obvious, and an executor who allows it is exposed if a beneficiary later queries what happened to an item.

The correct sequence is: anything potentially valuable is identified and valued independently first, photographed and listed, and only then does the clearance happen. We expect to work around that, not to shortcut it.

5. Willingness to work in stages

Estates rarely clear in one clean pass. Probate may still be pending on part of the contents. A beneficiary may want time in the property. Paperwork turns up in a drawer two weeks later.

A firm set up for estate work expects this. We can clear room by room, leave rooms untouched, hold items back for family, and return once decisions have been made. If a contractor needs the whole house emptied in one visit to make the job pay, their pricing is too tight for probate work.

6. A record of what was done

Executors are frequently not local. A solicitor instructing a clearance on a client’s behalf often never sees the property at all.

So the firm should provide photographs of the finished property, a note of what was removed, and the disposal paperwork – without being asked. That record is what lets an executor demonstrate they discharged their duties properly.

7. Discretion about what gets found

Clearances turn up things families did not know about: paperwork, cash, documents, correspondence, occasionally items that change the picture of an estate.

The expectation should be stated plainly before the job: anything of apparent value or significance is set aside and reported, not disposed of and not removed. If a firm has never thought about this, that tells you something.

What this looks like in practice

For a solicitor instructing on behalf of a client, the practical shape of a well-run clearance is:

• Photographs or a site visit, then a fixed written price before anything is committed.
• Confirmation of what is being left, held back, or handled separately.
• Keys collected and returned, or access arranged with the agent.
• The property cleared and left broom-clean.
• Photographs, a record of contents removed, and waste transfer notes returned to you.

No surprises, nothing you have to chase, and a file you can put in front of a beneficiary.

Working with us

We clear properties across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire and London, and we are used to dealing with executors and solicitors rather than the person who lives there. We are a licensed waste carrier and issue a transfer note on every collection as standard.

If you handle probate matters and want to know what a clearance would cost before committing a client to anything, send photographs and we will come back with a fixed figure.

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This article sets out what to expect from a clearance contractor. It is not legal advice on the administration of an estate.