House clearance in Hove is mostly work against a date. A completion on the Friday, a tenancy that ends on the Monday, a funeral and a family who live three counties away with one weekend to sort it all out. We cover BN3 and the BN52 addresses that sit with it, from the Regency squares at the Brunswick end to the semis up at Hangleton, and we have been clearing houses since 2007. Here is one job in full, and then the practical stuff — parking, stairs, what cannot go in the van, and where the rest of it ends up.
The tidiest job we have ever been handed arrived as a typed list. Not a whole property — a single load, gathered up and waiting. Two canisters of paint, three window blinds, two bags of metal light fittings, an electric iron, a toaster, a Sky router, a fifteen-inch monitor, twenty-five bathroom tiles, fifteen IKEA cardboard boxes broken down flat, a wooden armchair and its cushion, already dismantled. Ten bags of plastic bottles and paper. Then the photographs came through and an inkjet printer had joined the pile. By the time the date was fixed there was a single mattress as well, a PC unit and monitor, a floor-standing fan, and four wooden chairs taken apart. The customer wanted a Monday in late October and reckoned a small lorry would be enough.
Two lines from him decided how the day ran. "As it is a busy street, with a number of schools in the area, it would be best if collection took place between 10:00 and 14:00 hours." And then the one that saves everybody an hour: "I will bring everything to the ground floor in advance if i can be called in advance." So we rang ahead, as asked, and the crew loaded from the ground floor instead of off a landing. The paint was the one thing that could not travel with the rest — tins of paint never can — so it went off on its own route.
We take that sort of single-load collection in Hove as readily as a full house clearance, which does surprise people. The assumption is that a clearance firm only wants whole properties. Half a garage, one room, a flat emptied of everything except the heavy things at the end — all of it is ordinary work.
Hove sits in the BN3 postcode district, with the BN52 large-user addresses alongside it, and Brighton next door on BN1 and BN2, Portslade on BN41, Southwick on BN42 and Shoreham-by-Sea on BN43. Brighton and Hove is a unitary council. Ceremonially East Sussex, but it runs its own services; a mile or so west of Portslade you cross into West Sussex and the Adur district, which matters mainly for which council's tip you are arguing with. Hove station is the landmark people give us, with Aldrington and Portslade a couple of stops west and Brighton one stop east. Our crews come in by van rather than train, but the railway tells you the shape of the place. A long band of terraces and mansion blocks running parallel to the sea, the Regency squares at the Brunswick end, and the 1930s semis climbing towards Hangleton and West Blatchington.
Within BN3 we work across Brunswick and Adelaide, Cliftonville, Poets' Corner, Aldrington, Goldstone Valley, Hove Park, West Blatchington and Hangleton. Each has its own housing and its own particular nuisance: tall Regency conversions at one end, wide 1930s bays with proper drives at the other, and the long blocks along New Church Road somewhere in between.
We work either side of the boundary as well, and on a good day the same crew does both. Next door there is house clearance in Brighton, the biggest of our neighbours here and the one most people search for first. East along the coast we cover house clearance in Newhaven in BN9 and house clearance in Seaford in BN25, both small enough that a Hove morning and an afternoon down there fit into one day. Inland there is house clearance in Burgess Hill on RH15. Portslade and Fishersgate, Southwick and Shoreham we reach on the same run.
A three-bedroom house, room by room
One of the more organised jobs we've done in this area came with a list. A small three-bedroom house with a garden, a garage and an attic, and the family had gone through it room by room and written down what was to go and what was to stay. The hall: a white chair and a trolley, but the post basket and the curtains were staying. The living room: three armchairs, a two-seater sofa, a TV and music stack, two small tables, a bureau, boxes and pictures. But the mirror was to stay, on the grounds that the wall would look unsightly without it.
The kitchen: boxes, a sideboard, two microwaves and everything out of the pantry, while the table, four chairs and the white goods were being dealt with separately. Upstairs: bed, dressing table, chest of drawers, bedside table with everything on top of it, albums, records and sheets of music. In the small front bedroom, a sewing machine, a folding bed, two tables, lamps, and a cupboard full of bags and clothing that they'd set aside for charity. The attic was everything except the fixtures. In the garden, a heap of broken furniture on the patio — no gardening wanted, just the debris off it — and in the garage, the back half, leaving the green waste they were taking themselves.
Lists like that save an hour on the walk-round, and they save arguments later. We photograph the finished rooms and send them over the same day, which is how a customer who has moved away can see for themselves that the attic really is empty.
Garage and loft clearance in Hove
That job is the shape of a lot of what we do here, because garage and loft clearance in Hove is a service in its own right and not an afterthought. Plenty of BN3 garages are not attached to the house at all. They sit in a block at the end of a service road behind the terraces, up an alley barely wider than the van. The up-and-over door has not been lifted since the car stopped fitting inside it.
Lofts are the other half of the same job — boarded or not boarded, a hatch on the landing, sometimes a proper ladder and sometimes a kitchen chair. What comes out is fairly predictable: paint tins, a bicycle nobody has ridden in years, folding garden chairs, suitcases inside suitcases, boxes of paperwork, the Christmas decorations. If it is only the garage and loft you want emptied and the rest of the house is staying exactly as it is, say so when you ring, and that is what we quote for.
Parking, stairs and the awkward end of the job
Hove is not a difficult place to work in, but it is a place where the parking decides the day. Permit bays on most residential streets, meters on the busier ones. A lot of the flats are conversions of big Victorian and Edwardian houses with no lift and a half-landing turn that a three-seater sofa doesn't much like. Tell us the floor and whether there's a bay outside and we'll allow for it in the estimate rather than discovering it at ten past nine. If a suspension is needed, Brighton and Hove will arrange one, though they want notice.
Jobs do overrun, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. When the contents are mostly small. Drawers, boxes, decades of odds and ends that have to be gathered by hand rather than carried out in armfuls — a day turns into two and two loads turn into four. You hear that from us on the morning, not afterwards. Keys go back the same afternoon to whoever needs them, usually the agent handling the sale.
Flat clearance and end of tenancy house clearance Hove
Above the shops on the main roads, and all through the Brunswick and Cliftonville conversions, the flats come with stairs and nothing else. No lift, no loading bay, and a communal front door that has to be held open by somebody. Landlords and agents ring us at the end of a tenancy when someone has gone and left half the furniture behind: that work has its own rhythm. An inventory to meet, a date that will not move, and a request for photographs of the empty rooms before the check-out inspection. Single items count too. One sofa off a second floor is a job we will come out for.
Where the loads actually go
Anything still usable is offered on to a reuse project or a charity shop before it's near a skip — furniture, working electricals, the bags of clothing that families put aside anyway. What's left is tipped at a permitted transfer station and weighed in, with a transfer note for every load, and we hold waste carrier licence CBDU419679 with the Environment Agency. Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating now have to be kept apart from general waste and destroyed through a permitted route, because of the flame retardants in the foam. Upholstered items and mattresses are handled and recorded separately from the rest of the load. Fridges and freezers are the same story for a different reason — the gas has to come out under control. Loose builders' debris and garden waste we can take as house rubbish removal without touching the rest of the house.
Some things we can't put in a mixed load at all: tins of paint, gas cylinders, solvents, car batteries, asbestos sheeting from an old shed roof. Say so on the phone and we'll tell you the right route for them instead of turning up and leaving them in the middle of the floor.
How we arrive at a figure
We look at photographs or a short video before we say anything. It is quicker than a description over the phone, and it is exactly how the collection at the top of this page was sized before the van was booked. You get our estimate in writing, with a date, and there is no obligation in asking. If the crew's own assessment on the morning is that the job is bigger than what we were shown, you get a phone call before anything else goes in the van. Executors are welcome to have the invoice sent to whoever is handling the estate — the solicitor, a trustee, or the executor direct.
Ring 0800 046 5555 and describe it, or send photographs through the form on this page.
Probate, executors and houses nobody has been into for years
A fair share of our work in Hove and Brighton is instructed by someone who lives nowhere near. Executors in another county, landlords who haven't seen the inside of the flat in years, agents who've been handed a key and a deadline. We do the walk-round on the morning, ring you with what we've found, and work to your instruction from there.
Nobody needs to tidy first. Properties that have filled up over a long time are ordinary work for us, not a talking point, and the crews have seen enough of them to get on quietly. Cash, jewellery and paperwork turn up in the strangest places — inside books, taped behind drawers — and anything of that kind is set aside and handed over rather than binned. Where a family has told us what stays — a shed, a pergola, the carpets — we write it down before the day. Clear instructions beat a surprise every time.
Probate house clearance Hove
Probate house clearance is the biggest single part of what we do in BN3, and it usually reaches us in one of two states. A house that has been shut up since the funeral, or one that is already on the market with a date attached. On a probate clearance we work to whatever the estate needs. Everything out, or everything out except the items the family have marked, or a first visit to lift the furniture so a valuer can see the floor. We will invoice the solicitor, the trustee or the executor direct, whichever suits the estate, and we send the waste transfer notes with it so there is a paper trail for the file. If you would rather read about that side of it on its own, there is a page on probate house clearance. A separate one on hoarder house clearance for the properties that need a slower, two-person, sift-everything approach.
Getting a number to work with
Ring us and describe the property — number of bedrooms, floor, loft, garage, shed, whether there's a bay outside — or send photographs from your phone, which is usually quicker than a description. We'll come back with a written figure and a date. Fully insured, licensed, and used to working around funerals, completion dates and the agent who wants the keys by four. The number is 0800 046 5555.
Common questions about house clearance in Hove
Do you clear flats above the ground floor in Hove?
Yes, and most of the ones we do here are conversions with no lift. Tell us the floor and whether the staircase turns on a half-landing, because that decides how many of us come and how long the day takes. A sofa that went up in pieces usually has to come down in pieces.
Can you invoice the solicitor or executor on a probate clearance?
We can. On probate work the invoice goes to whoever is handling the estate — the solicitor, a trustee, or the executor direct — and the waste transfer notes go with it for the estate file. The person instructing us does not have to be the person receiving the paperwork.
Do you take garage and loft clearances on their own?
Yes. A garage and loft clearance with the rest of the house untouched is a normal booking, not an odd request. Tell us whether the loft is boarded and whether the garage door still lifts, because both change what we bring with us.
What can't you take away?
Paint, solvents, gas cylinders, car batteries and anything containing asbestos cannot go in a mixed load. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture we do take, but they are handled through their own permitted routes rather than tipped with the general waste.
How much notice do you need in Hove?
It depends on the week and on the parking. Some jobs in BN3 we can pick up within a couple of days; a big one that needs a bay suspension from Brighton and Hove needs longer, because the council want notice. Ring 0800 046 5555 and we will tell you honestly what the diary looks like.
