We have been doing house clearance in Oldham since 2007 — terraces climbing out of the town centre, semis in Chadderton, stone cottages up on the Saddleworth edge. A fair slice of it is probate work, arranged by executors who live nowhere near the borough and have a solicitor waiting on a completion date. The rest is landlords, families downsizing, and houses that have quietly filled up over twenty years. The job below is a fair sample of the awkward end of it.
August 2022, a property in OL1, close in to the town centre. We had looked at it properly before quoting, which is not always the case in this trade, and the survey found rat faeces through the rooms. That puts a clearance in a different class — different kit, different handling, a different disposal route — and we say so at the point of booking rather than sending three lads and a Luton and improvising on the doorstep. The team read the whole property and estimated two loads to finish it, and that estimate went to the customer in writing before anyone agreed to anything.
The scope was settled on the phone and then put down in an email so nobody was guessing on the Monday morning. Our written confirmation back to the customer read: "Just to confirm your request over the phone just now. You would like the team to clear the front room and the storage area on Monday."
Then a second instruction came in and was added to the sheet — the items sitting out in the back garden were to come as well, and that went straight through to the crew rather than being sprung on them at nine o'clock.
The booking was confirmed for Monday 8th August, the team meeting the customer at the property for 9am, which is the standard start and was the start on that one. Photographs went over afterwards for the customer's records. It was still 2022, so the booking form asked whether there had been any COVID at the property and whether anyone attending was self-isolating; the answer came back NO, and that line went on the job sheet with everything else.
Nothing about that clearance was dramatic. It was a front room, a storage area, a back garden, and a property that needed handling properly on the way out. Most of the week looks like that.
Where the contents went
Furniture and clothing in decent order gets offered on before anything else. Reuse projects and charity shops take a lot of what comes out of a two-bed, and a wardrobe that's still solid does more good in somebody's back bedroom than in a skip. Upholstered items are different. Sofas, armchairs and padded dining chairs contain treated foam. Since the persistent organic pollutant rules came in they have to be kept apart from general waste and burned in a permitted facility, so they're weighed and booked in on their own. Fridges and freezers go the same way for a different reason — the gas in them makes them hazardous, and they can't ride in a mixed load without being logged.
Everything else goes into a permitted transfer station, tipped, weighed and receipted. Our waste carrier licence is CBDU419679, registered with the Environment Agency. The paperwork for any load is yours if you want a copy — executors and managing agents ask for it fairly often and we'd rather hand it over than argue about it. Fly-tipping in the moorland lanes above Oldham is a real problem, and Oldham Council prosecutes for it; a documented transfer note is how you prove your house contents didn't end up on a verge above Denshaw.
End of tenancy clearance in Oldham
Landlords and letting agents across OL1, OL2 and OL8 book end of tenancy clearance most weeks — a tenant gone, furniture left in every room, and a re-let date already agreed. Usually a single day: cleared, swept, photographed for the file, keys back the same afternoon.
Oldham houses, and getting a van near them
The borough is built on a hill and it shows in the work. Long stone and brick terraces climb away from the centre through Waterhead, Glodwick and Lees, most of them with a rear alley just wide enough for a Luton if nothing's parked badly and the bins have been put back. Hollinwood and Fitton Hill in OL8, Chadderton in OL9, Royton and Shaw north up the OL2 side — a lot of that is inter-war semis and post-war estates with a drive, which is the easy end of the job. Then there's Saddleworth. Uppermill, Delph, Dobcross, Greenfield and Diggle sit up on the Pennine edge in OL3. Clearing a stone cottage there can mean a long carry from wherever the van can legally stand, up steps, sometimes on a lane where two vehicles can't pass. We plan those differently and we'll say so on the phone rather than turn up and discover it.
Winter matters too. Snow closes the tops above Saddleworth Moor before it touches the rest of Greater Manchester, and a clearance booked for a January morning in Diggle sometimes moves a day. Nobody minds losing a day. Everybody minds a van stuck sideways on a hill.
Town-centre flats above the shops are their own puzzle — some have no lift, some have a shared stair that also serves a business, and the loading has to fit round the tram. Oldham Mumps, Oldham Central and King Street are Metrolink stops running along the Rochdale to Manchester line, and the crew often come in that way when the van's already parked up. For heavy rail, Greenfield station on the Manchester to Huddersfield route is the nearest proper platform to the eastern villages, and Mills Hill covers the Chadderton and Middleton side.
The areas we cover from here
Our own districts are OL1 and OL4 in the centre and out to Lees and Springhead, OL2 for Royton, Shaw and Crompton, OL3 for the Saddleworth villages, and OL8 and OL9 south and west. Rochdale, Heywood and Milnrow sit beyond them, each its own town rather than a line on an Oldham list. Failsworth, Middleton, Ashton-under-Lyne and Mossley all sit on the boundary and we cross it without a second thought. If you're in Greater Manchester and near enough to any of those, ask — the answer is usually straightforward.
Several of those places have a page of their own. If the property isn't in the borough, start there instead: house clearance in Manchester for anything inside the city, house clearance in Bolton over on the other side of the county, house clearance in Rochdale up the valley, and house clearance in Heywood beyond it. Same crew, same vans, same licence.
The kinds of house clearance we do in Oldham
Probate house clearance Oldham
Most estate work reaches us the same way — a solicitor's letter, a set of keys, and a family who don't live locally. A probate house clearance in Oldham is not a different service to any other clearance. It is the paperwork round it that changes: an inventory of anything that might have value, photographs before and after, a transfer note for the loads, and items of sentimental value picked out and posted on rather than tipped. Tell us what to look for — the medals, the photograph albums, the box of documents that might matter to probate house clearance itself — and the crew will set it aside instead of guessing.
Garage and loft clearance Oldham
Half the terraces in OL4 and OL8 have a loft that hasn't been opened since the last owner, and plenty of the Chadderton and Royton semis have a garage that stopped holding a car in about 1990. Garage and loft clearance is ordinary work for us and it is worth flagging when you book, because it changes the number of hands we send and the ladder that goes on the van. Lofts with a proper drop-down stair are quick. Lofts with a hatch and a joist floor are not, and a garage with a leaking roof usually means half of what's in it is going straight to the tip rather than to a charity shop.
Flat clearance in the OL postcodes
Above-shop flats in the town centre, sheltered schemes out towards Lees, and blocks off the main roads in OL9. The variables are always the same three: lift or no lift, where the van can legally stand, and whether the building has a rule about loading hours. Say which of those you know when you ring and we can plan the morning round them.
Hoarder house clearance Oldham
Houses that have filled up over twenty years are part of the ordinary week for us, not something we recoil from. Two storage rooms and an outhouse crammed to the ceiling is not a difficult day. It is just a day that needs the right number of loads booked in advance, and sometimes a survey first, as with the OL1 job above. There's no lecture and no commentary from the crew, and if you want the detail of how we approach it, the hoarder house clearance page covers it. Where it's a matter of a few bulky items rather than a whole property, house rubbish removal is usually the better fit.
Executors, and instructing from a distance
One of ours in Royton, OL2, was arranged by post and telephone. The relative lived in the north of Scotland — several hundred miles away, never once on site, with the property cleared over two loads on the day. That is far more common than people expect. An executor in the OL postcodes settling a property in another county, or somebody who's moved south arranging the clearance of a family house in Shaw — either direction, the method's the same. You write down what stays and what goes, we photograph the property before and after, and the keys can come from a warden, a neighbour or a key safe.
On the money side there is only one thing worth saying here, and it's about who we bill rather than what for. Where probate is running, we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly — the invoice does not have to go to you personally, and payment can come out of the estate on completion. There is no deposit and nothing is payable before the work is done. If the solicitor needs the invoice worded a particular way for the estate accounts, say so when you book and we'll do it that way first time.
People ask how it compares with hiring a skip. On an Oldham terrace with permit parking and a narrow front, a skip usually means a licence from the council, a week of the neighbours' rubbish landing in it overnight, and you still carrying every wardrobe down the stairs yourself. A crew and a van does the carrying, sorts the reusable from the rubbish on the way out, and leaves the same afternoon. On a Chadderton semi with a wide drive it's a closer call. We'll say honestly which one suits your property.
Keys are the usual sticking point. We've collected from wardens, from neighbours, from managing agents' offices, and from key safes where the code came through in an email the night before. Tell us which it is when you book and we'll build the morning round it.
What it costs, and what we won't put in the van
On cost, this page says one thing and one thing only: ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode and the number of rooms, or send photographs through the form on this page, and you'll get a figure back. Nothing is published here, because a number written down last year isn't a number we can stand behind for your property this year. Nobody is sent round to talk you into anything on your doorstep either.
Some things we can't legally load in with the rest: tins of paint, gas canisters, fire extinguishers, car tyres, chemicals from the shed. Tell us what's there and we'll deal with them separately or point you at the borough's household waste recycling centre, which accepts most of it from residents.
House clearance Oldham — common questions
Can you do a probate house clearance before probate has been granted? Yes. We clear plenty of properties while probate is still running. What matters is that whoever instructs us has the authority to do so — an executor, an administrator, or somebody holding lasting power of attorney — and that anything of potential value is listed and photographed before it leaves.
Who is invoiced, and when? We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, whichever you tell us to, and payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit. The invoice follows the work; it does not come before it.
How long does a house clearance in Oldham take? Most properties are done in a single day, starting at nine. Two storage rooms, a loft and a garage on top of the house can push it into a second day. A stone cottage in OL3 with a long carry will take longer than the same contents in a Royton semi with a drive.
Do I need to be there? No. We can collect keys from a warden, a neighbour or a key safe, clear the property, and email photographs of every room afterwards. Items of sentimental value get set aside and sent on if you tell us what to look for.
Can you clear the garage and loft as well as the house? Yes, and it helps to say so at the booking stage rather than on the morning. Garage and loft clearance changes how many hands we bring and what goes on the van.
Which parts of Oldham do you cover? All of it — OL1, OL2, OL3, OL4, OL8, OL9 and the OL95 addresses, from Glodwick and Waterhead to Shaw, Chadderton, Hollinwood and the Saddleworth villages. If you're just over the boundary, ask anyway.
Ring us with the postcode, the number of bedrooms and anything unusual — a piano, a stair lift, an outbuilding you haven't opened since spring — and we'll tell you which day we can get to you. We're licensed for the waste under CBDU419679 and insured for the work, and we'll put both in writing before the van sets off.
