We have been doing house clearance in Romford since 2007, and most of it is estate work — probate clearances booked by executors, a good number of whom live nowhere near Havering. The rest is end-of-tenancy work, flat clearance, and the odd garage nobody has opened since the nineties. Here is one from the first week of January 2025, in RM7.
Two loads, one day. That was what the team put it at when they had walked round it on the morning, and that is how it finished. The person instructing us was based over at Brentwood and could not be there, so the assessment went down the phone first and the work started once it was agreed. Out of the house came an upright fridge freezer and two smaller under-counter units, a television and a mattress.
There was one upholstered piece that counts as a POP item and has to be dealt with on its own, and a half-used tin of paint that could not ride in with the household waste. Nothing exotic about any of it. Just a house with more in it than a single load would hold, and a client who needed the whole thing done in a day rather than strung out over a week. The only complaint that came back afterwards had nothing to do with the clearance at all: "Please note - the 'Review & Pay' button on the invoice does not work." Fair enough. It did not, and we sorted it out by email.
Executors, and clients who live somewhere else
A good share of our Romford work is instructed by people who do not live in Romford. That January clearance was booked from Brentwood. An earlier RM7 house was arranged by an owner living over in Upminster — two loads on the same day, and a pair of mattresses out with them. And back in August 2020 we did a flat clearance in Chadwell Heath, RM6. An apartment, one load, instructed not by the family at all but by a solicitor's office in the town centre. The paperwork was in order before the team arrived.
Probate house clearance in Romford
Estate work is the bulk of what we do here, and the rhythm of it hardly changes. The grant of probate comes through, the sale goes under offer, and then everything in the house has to be gone inside a fortnight. We are used to working to that, and used to working with someone who is two counties away and can only get down for one morning — or with three executors who all have to agree before anybody signs anything.
On a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, whoever is actually settling things, and the bill can be paid out of the estate rather than out of anyone's own pocket. There is no deposit. Nothing is asked for before the work is done. If the others need to see it in writing before they will agree, say so and it goes in writing. There is more on how those jobs are run on our probate house clearance page.
Noak Hill, and a road only wide enough for one
Out at the northern edge of the borough, RM3 stops being suburban fairly abruptly. Harold Hill gives way to Noak Hill, and past that RM4 is properly rural — Havering-atte-Bower, Stapleford Abbotts, Abridge and Lambourne End, where a good few of the drives are private lanes wide enough for one vehicle and nothing else. There is no polite way round that. While our lorry is on the lane, nobody else is getting past. We say so before the booking rather than after it, the client warns the neighbours, and the job gets done in a single visit.
Photographs do most of the estimating for us up there, because nobody wants a van sent along a track on spec. Send us pictures of the rooms, of the garden, and tell us whether the white goods and the carpets are staying or going, and we can give you a written quote before anyone gets in a van. Some things a photograph will never show: the weight of a load, how far the parking ends up from the front door, a queue at the transfer station. If the day starts drifting away from the estimate, the team ring you while there is still a choice to be made.
End of tenancy clearance in Romford
Landlords and managing agents across RM1, RM3 and RM7 book end of tenancy clearance from us most months, usually with a check-out inspection or a new tenant already in the diary. A tenant has gone and left a bed, a sofa, a washing machine and whatever was in the shed. End of tenancy work is normally a half day rather than a full one, but the yard and the shed are what decide that, so mention the outside when you ring.
The heavier end of it
Not every house clearance in Romford is a tidy two-bedroom with a drive on it. Properties that have been left to fill up, where the contents have gone bad or the garden has gone well past cutting back, are something we handle as a matter of course. No lectures, no faces pulled on the doorstep. The team come equipped for it rather than turning up and deciding it is not their sort of job. Masks, gloves, heavy-duty bags, and a clean afterwards if you want one. If that is what you are looking at, the hoarder house clearance page goes through how those days are run.
At the other end of it, plenty of what we do here is not a whole property at all. A garage and loft clearance where the house itself stays furnished. One wardrobe down two flights. A shed. A van-load of rubbish removal after a builder has packed up and left the spoil behind. Ring us for a single item as readily as for eight rooms — RM5 at Collier Row and RM6 over towards Marks Gate throw up a lot of those, terraces and semis where the loft was the only storage anybody ever had.
What we can and cannot put in the van
Upholstery — sofas, armchairs, footstools — and mattresses have to travel and be destroyed under their own set of rules, which is why the team count them separately when they look round rather than lumping them in with the rest. Fridges and freezers are the same story: the gas has to be taken out under permit, and an upright unit is handled differently from an under-counter one. Televisions and monitors go for proper electrical recovery. Half-used tins of paint we can lift, but they are logged on their own, because they cannot ride in with general household waste.
Gas cylinders, solvents and asbestos we will not carry at all — say so on the phone and we will tell you who can. Furniture and household goods still worth having are offered on to charity shops and reuse schemes around the borough before anything else happens to them, and clothes, books and crockery in decent condition usually find a home the same week. Whatever is left is booked into a permitted facility and weighed in against our waste carrier registration, CBDU419679, with paperwork you are welcome to ask for. We are insured for the work and for being in your property while we do it.
Where we go, and how we get there
Romford sits in the London Borough of Havering, and the RM postcodes fan out from it. RM1 is the town centre itself, the market and the ring road and the streets behind them. RM2 is Gidea Park, and RM3 covers Harold Wood, Harold Hill and Noak Hill. RM4 runs out to Havering-atte-Bower, Stapleford Abbotts, Abridge and the lanes around them. RM5 is Collier Row. RM6 goes across towards Chadwell Heath and Marks Gate, and RM7 takes in the Rush Green and Mawneys side of the town. Beyond our own districts we work RM11 and RM12 in Hornchurch, Emerson Park and Elm Park, RM13 down at Rainham and Wennington, and RM14 out at Upminster and Cranham. House clearance in Hornchurch, house clearance in Upminster and house clearance in Rainham each have a page of their own, and if the property you are ringing about is the other side of London altogether, so does house clearance in Croydon.
Most crews come in along the A12 or the A127. Romford station is the obvious landmark on the Elizabeth line, with Gidea Park and Harold Wood the next stops out; Emerson Park sits on the little Romford–Upminster shuttle, and Rainham is served from Fenchurch Street. None of that matters much for a clearance, except that the roads around the stations at school-run time are worth avoiding, and we plan the arrival accordingly. Council tips take household waste brought by the householder, not trade loads, so everything we carry goes to a permitted commercial facility.
Pricing
Every house is different, so the quote comes after we have seen what is actually in it — free, and with nothing owed if you decide against it. Ring 0800 046 5555 with the address, the number of bedrooms and whether the loft and the garage are included, and send a few photographs through the form on this page. You will have it back in writing the same working day, with anything that could still shift flagged as such. On estate work the invoice goes to the solicitor, the executor or the estate, it can be settled out of the estate, and there is no deposit at any stage.
House clearance in Romford — questions we get asked
Can you invoice our solicitor on a probate clearance? Yes. On probate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and it can be paid out of the estate once the grant is through. There is no deposit, and nothing is due before the work has been done.
Which parts of Romford do you cover? All of RM1 through RM7. That is the town centre, Gidea Park, Harold Wood, Harold Hill and Noak Hill. It takes in the RM4 villages out at Havering-atte-Bower and Stapleford Abbotts, then Collier Row, Chadwell Heath, Marks Gate, Rush Green and Mawneys. Hornchurch, Elm Park, Rainham and Upminster are next door.
Do we have to be there on the day? No. Someone usually is, and it helps, but a neighbour or an agent can let the team in just as well. If you cannot get down, a phone call first thing and a list of what is staying will do it. Label anything that is to be left where it is and the team will work round it.
Can you do a flat clearance rather than a whole house? Yes. Flat clearance is a steady part of the work here, top-floor flats included — stairs with no lift are a nuisance rather than a problem, and the team price the walk, not just the load.
Is there anything you will not take? Gas cylinders, solvents and asbestos, and we will say so on the phone rather than on the doorstep. Fridges, freezers, mattresses, upholstered furniture and electricals we do take, but each of those has its own legal route out and gets handled accordingly.
How much notice do you need? Usually a few days. Estate sales tend to arrive with a completion date already attached to them and we will work to it where we can — the tighter that date is, the sooner it is worth ringing.
Ring 0800 046 5555, or send a few photographs through the form on this page, and we will come back to you in writing the same working day.
