Five mattresses came out of one house. That is the detail that stuck with the lads on a house clearance in SK9 in March 2021, over on the Alderley Edge side, where beds had been left standing in rooms nobody had slept in for a long time. The team filled the Luton, came back and filled it a second time the same afternoon, then spent the tail end of the day cleaning through so the place could be handed over empty. The man settling the bill was in Dumfries, several hundred miles north, and he never stood in the house while it was emptied. He did not need to.
That is a fairly normal job for us round this part of Cheshire. Somebody inherits or sells a house in Wilmslow, Handforth or Alderley Edge, lives nowhere near it, and needs the whole lot gone before a completion date that will not move.
Where we work from Wilmslow
Wilmslow itself is SK9, shared with Handforth, Styal and Alderley Edge. Inside that one district sit most of the names people give us when they ring — Fulshaw, Lacey Green, Lindow, Dean Row, Colshaw, Morley Green, Pownall Park, Handforth Dean. A house clearance in Wilmslow rarely takes us further than a few minutes off the A34, whichever of those it turns out to be.
Our own district is SK9 — Wilmslow itself, Alderley Edge, Handforth and Styal. Beyond it the neighbouring towns have pages of their own: Macclesfield and Poynton to the east, Knutsford to the west, Northwich, Middlewich and Congleton south, and Crewe and Nantwich beyond them.
Several of those towns have pages of their own, so if the property you are dealing with sits nearer to them than to us, start there instead: house clearance in Macclesfield for SK10 and SK11, house clearance in Crewe for CW1 and CW2, house clearance in Knutsford for WA16, and house clearance in Congleton for CW12. Same crews, same vans, different page on the day sheet.
Wilmslow station is the useful thing about the town, for you and for us. One way it runs into Manchester, the other it drops down the main line to Crewe. More than one clearance here has begun with a relative stepping off that train holding a set of keys and no real idea what was behind the door. With Manchester Airport ten minutes up the road, plenty of families in this town are scattered a good deal further than Crewe.
Getting a van to the door
Access varies wildly inside a couple of miles here, so we ask about it before booking rather than discovering it at nine in the morning.
The Victorian and Edwardian villas on the Fulshaw side and off Chapel Lane usually have a drive, but a lot of those drives are gravel, curved, and hemmed in by mature planting that has had forty years to close over the entrance. A Luton is taller than people picture. The 1960s and 70s semis at Dean Row, Colshaw and out towards Handforth are easier: hardstanding at the front, a straight run to the door, no drama. Town-centre flats above the shops on Grove Street and Alderley Road are the awkward ones, because there is nowhere legal to stand a van for six hours and everything has to come down a communal stair.
Older properties out towards Mobberley and Knutsford often bring a different problem — a garage or outbuilding at the bottom of a long garden, packed to the door, with a soft grass run and no vehicle access. That is fine. It just costs time, and time is what a clearance day is made of.
How a clearance day runs in Wilmslow
The team is on site at nine. First thing is a walk round with whoever holds the keys, or a phone call with whoever does not, so that everybody agrees what is going and what is staying before a single item moves. Then it is room by room, usually starting at the top, because carrying down past a stacked hallway is how backs and door frames get hurt.
Lofts and garages are done in daylight if we can manage it, since that is where the surprises live. Gardens last. A three-bedroom house in Wilmslow with normal contents is a day; a heavily filled one, or a house where the loft has been used as long-term storage since the children left, runs to two, and we would rather say so on the phone than at four in the afternoon on day one.
When it is empty the crew sweep through. If you are not there — and often nobody is — photographs go over the same day, and keys go back to the agent or through the letterbox, whichever you have asked for.
When the person in charge lives somewhere else
A good share of our probate work in SK9 is instructed from another county or another country. The executor has a completion date, a solicitor, a diary that will not stretch, and no intention of driving up the M6 to watch a van being loaded. That is a perfectly workable way to do it, provided the questions are settled in writing first.
We ask the same short set before any booking, and it is worth knowing what they are:
- Who will meet the team, and a number they can be reached on
- Anything staying behind — a new appliance still in its wrapper, a piece going to another relative
- Carpets and curtains in or out
- Fridges, freezers and cookers, and whether they are upright, under-counter or chest
- Parking restrictions for a large van, and whether power and water are still connected
Answer those and a probate house clearance can be signed off from anywhere. On estate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly — whichever you tell us — and payment can come out of the estate rather than out of your own pocket while probate is still being sorted. There is no deposit. Nothing is asked for up front, the invoice follows the work, and the arrangement is agreed in advance rather than sprung on anybody afterwards. If it helps, our probate house clearance page sets out the same ground in more detail.
Getting a quote for a house clearance in Wilmslow
Two ways, and both end in a figure. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send photographs — the form on this page takes them — with rough room sizes and anything unusual you already know about.
Photographs do most of the work from a distance, and most people send them. What photographs cannot show is a loft, the back of a garage, or the weight of what is in either. If the team can see a job running well past what was described when they walk it, they stop and set the options out while there is still a choice to be made, instead of presenting it at the end.
Garage and loft clearance in Wilmslow
A garage and loft clearance on its own is a normal booking here. The loft with the ladder missing, the garage at the end of a long drive that has not had a car in it for years, the shed behind it. Both are worth naming when you ring, because a full loft is where the hours go and a packed garage turns one load into two.
What the van is not allowed to take
Upholstered furniture is the one that catches people out. Sofas, armchairs, padded dining chairs, footstools and the like count as POP items under the persistent organic pollutant rules. They cannot be tipped in with general waste, and they cannot travel mixed into a load with recyclables — they are kept apart and sent for incineration at permitted sites. That is a legal requirement on how the stuff is handled, not a matter of preference, and it applies to every clearance we do.
Fridges and freezers have to be degassed by a licensed operator, which is why they travel separately too. Beyond that there are things we simply will not put on the vehicle. Tins of paint and thinners. Gas cylinders off a patio heater or a caravan. Car batteries, drums of oil, and anything that turns out to be asbestos — old garage roofs and downpipes round here throw that up more often than you would expect. Cheshire East run household waste recycling centres for the small domestic bits, and where a specialist is needed we will tell you plainly who to ring.
Where it all ends up
Nothing goes straight into a hole in the ground. Usable furniture, kitchenware, tools, books and bric-a-brac are offered on to reuse outlets and good causes in Cheshire before anything else is decided. Metal is separated for scrap. Green waste off a garden clearance is composted rather than tipped.
Whatever is genuinely finished goes to permitted waste facilities, weighed in and receipted, so there is a paper trail behind every load that leaves your property. We hold waste carrier licence CBDU419679 with the Environment Agency, and we are fully insured. Where somebody wants the tonnage evidenced rather than estimated — executors and property managers ask for this more than private sellers do — the loads can be put over a weighbridge and the tickets sent on with the paperwork. It is a perfectly reasonable thing to want.
Full houses, and the ones that go wrong
Some of these properties hold forty years of accumulation, floor to ceiling in places, and we are not squeamish about them. Nobody on the team passes remarks about what is in a house. We turn up, we empty it, we sweep it. If that is what you are facing, the hoarder house clearance page explains how those days are run.
Not everything that goes sideways happens on the day, mind. One Wilmslow house clearance in SK9 came and went without a hitch — a single load out of the place, five mattresses among it, the person handling it living across the county rather than in the house — and then the wobble arrived a week later, at the bank. They had paid, but the transfer landed with nothing on it to say who it was from. Their email put it plainly: "I've just paid via bank transfer but didn't put the invoice reference on the payment." We found it, matched it up, and told them so the same day. Small thing. It was keeping them awake, so it mattered.
And when something does go wrong on our side — a van off the road, a crew a man short, a job that turns out to be twice what the photographs showed — you get told that day, with what we propose to do about it. We have had jobs run late and we have had customers with every right to be annoyed. Saying so is cheaper than pretending otherwise, and it is what we would want if the house were ours.
Stripping and cleaning often get added on when a house is going to market, and a full house clearance in Wilmslow will sometimes end with two days of wallpaper coming off before the photographs are taken.
If you have a house in Wilmslow, Handforth, Alderley Edge, Poynton or anywhere else across Cheshire East that needs emptying, ring 0800 046 5555 or send a few photographs with rough room sizes through the form on this page. You will get a figure, a date, and a team that starts at nine.
Common questions about house clearance in Wilmslow
Who is invoiced on a probate house clearance? The solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Payment can come out of the estate once probate allows it, and there is no deposit.
Can you clear the house if we live nowhere near it? Yes — that is most of our SK9 work. Keys from an agent, a neighbour or a relative, and photographs of the empty rooms by email the same day.
Do we need to empty the cupboards first? No. The team clears wardrobes, drawers and cupboards themselves. Tell us what must stay and it is set aside.
Are the garage and loft part of the job? They are if you say so when you book. Mention the shed too — it is the one people forget.
What won't go on the van? Paint, thinners, garden chemicals, gas bottles and anything that looks like asbestos. Fridges, freezers and upholstered furniture travel, but each on its own controlled route.
How long does a Wilmslow house clearance take? Most houses are done in a day. A very full property, or one with the loft, garage and garden as well, can run into a second.
