Probate house clearance is rarely one job. When you're the executor clearing a parent's Norfolk home, there's usually the clearance itself, the keepsakes that need to reach family, and the furniture nobody is ready to part with yet. We arrange all three as one job, with one firm we've checked and one person to ring.
Most guides to house clearance after death are written by a clearance firm, so they describe one job: theirs. This one is about the whole house.
Three jobs hiding in one house
The clearance. Everything that isn't being kept, sold or passed on. It's the biggest job and usually the last one that should happen.
The keepsakes. The dresser your sister wants. The boxes of photos. The clock that's been on the same mantelpiece for as long as anyone can remember. These often need to go to family who live elsewhere, sometimes far away. That's fine: one end of the move has to be in Norfolk, and the other can be anywhere in the UK. It goes as one crew, door to door, not handed between depots.
The furniture into storage. When the family hasn't decided yet, or the house is going on the market before anyone has room for the good pieces. Storage starts from £30 a week in rural Norfolk and can double in the city, depending on how much there is. Moving it in and moving it out again are each priced as their own move, so you can see what each part costs.
What usually happens
You book a clearance firm. Then you ring round for a removals firm to take the keepsakes. Then you find a storage unit and work out how to get the furniture there. That's three quotes, three sets of strangers with the keys, and three dates to line up.
And the order goes wrong. The clearance crew turns up on the Tuesday, but the van for your sister's dresser can't come until Friday. Now someone has to stand guard over a dresser in an empty house, or hope the clearance crew reads the sticky note.
What happens with us
You tell us about the house once, and one Norfolk firm does the whole job. Every firm we match you with is insured, and that insurance (goods-in-transit and liability) is checked with the insurer as part of vetting, not taken from a PDF. Billy ran his own removals firm before setting this up, and he checks the paperwork and reviews too. How we check every firm is set out in full.
Then the job runs in the order it should:
- Keepsakes first. Tell the firm what's going to family, and it goes before anything else leaves.
- Storage next. The pieces being kept for later go into storage, with both moving legs arranged for you.
- Clearance last. What's left is cleared, so nothing goes in the wrong van.
You get one fixed price from the firm, with nothing added on top by us. We're paid a fee by the firm on completed jobs only. If something goes wrong, you ring us, not a call centre.
If the house is in another part of the county from where you live, that matters too. Norfolk is big and mostly rural. A crew based on the wrong side of it loses an hour before lifting anything, which is why who you're matched with matters as much as the price.
What a probate house clearance costs
As a rough guide, a house clearance in Norfolk is around £400 for a flat and around £800 for a three-bed house. It varies a lot with how much is in the house, so every clearance is properly quoted before you book. Treat those as typical figures, not a fixed price: the firm's quote is the price.
What moves the figure:
- How much is there. Volume matters more than anything. A full loft and a packed garage count.
- Stairs and long carries. Some suppliers charge extra for stairs or long carries, so say if there are any.
- Access and parking. Parking is the firm's job to sort, but if you know of permit rules on the street, flag them early.
- Distance. We tend to use firms that don't charge extra for distance or awkward access.
The quickest way to an accurate price is photos of every room. Show the loft and the shed too, because that's where the surprises live.
When it's a downsizing move, not a clearance
Sometimes it isn't a house after a death. It's a parent moving somewhere smaller, and the same three jobs turn up: a move, a clearance of what won't fit, and storage while the family decides.
We see this a lot around Dereham, where whole streets of bungalows mean many downsizing moves, often with clearance and storage quoted alongside. The streets around the Market Place are narrow and busy on market mornings, so loading is planned in advance. The move itself is handled like any of our house removals: one checked firm, one fixed price.
Questions people ask
Can you clear a house before probate?
That depends on the estate and the will, and it's a question for the executor or the solicitor dealing with probate, not for a removals firm. GOV.UK explains when you need probate to deal with someone's property. If you're not sure yet, you can still get the job priced from photos now and book the date once you have the go-ahead.
How long do you have to clear a house after someone dies?
There's no single deadline to clear a house after someone dies that we can give you: it depends on whether the house is being sold, let or handed back to a landlord. Your solicitor or the landlord will know the dates that apply. Once you have a date, tell us early. Completion-day Fridays book first.
Do house clearance companies clear everything?
They clear what you ask them to. Before the day, tell the firm what's staying, what's going to family and what's going into storage. That's the whole point of doing it as one job: one list, one firm, and nothing cleared that should have been kept.
Tell us about the house
If you're dealing with a parent's house and more than one of these jobs, our concierge service is built for it. Tell us about the house once, and we'll come back with one firm and one price.
Get your quote, or ring us on 01603 267 440. A person answers, not a menu: Monday to Friday 8am–6pm, Saturday 9am–2pm.