House clearance in Andover is Test Valley work for us. SP10 for the town, SP11 for the villages that ring it — and more often than not the person arranging it doesn't live in the house, or in Hampshire at all. Here is one of ours, told the way it happened.
February 2022, a house in SP10, and the instruction came from a solicitors' office in central London that was handling the estate. The whole thing was set up by email. It ran to two loads on the day — the van went out full, came back, and took the rest — and beyond that what is on the record is three mattresses and three small fridge freezers. Six items that can't simply be tipped with the rest of a house, which is why they're written down separately in the first place. Three fridge freezers under one roof is more common than people expect: a kitchen gets replaced, the old unit goes out to the garage or the utility, and it's still standing there humming away twenty years later. Everything that left the property went through regulated recycling and disposal, load by load, with the paperwork to match.
Nobody from the family had to come down and stand in the hallway for it. The office dealt with the solicitor by email from the first enquiry to the last message, and nothing about the day needed anyone connected with the estate to travel down to Hampshire.
There was one more bit of admin after that, on the Monday of the following week. The 28th of February — a phone call asking for the paperwork to be reissued and re-addressed so it matched what the estate file needed. With A hard copy put in the post rather than sent as an attachment. Proof of the bank details to go with it. The hard copy went in the post the day that email was written, and the line the office signed off with, word for word, was: "Hope this is sufficient to pay the invoice". That happens a fair amount on probate house clearance work and it's worth saying plainly that we'll do it. Solicitors have their own requirements about how documents arrive and who they're made out to, and arguing with that is not our business. Reissue, re-address, post it. Done.
Where we cover, and how we get there
This page is about Andover, but the van covers the whole of Test Valley and the routes either side of it. SP10 takes in Andover town itself and Charlton, with SP11 for the outskirts and the villages. Anna Valley, Picket Twenty and the newer builds out towards Weyhill, and further out Abbotts Ann, Amport, Thruxton, Hurstbourne Priors, Litchfield and Laverstoke, Grateley, Ludgershall and the lanes up towards Hurstbourne Tarrant. SO51 covers Romsey and the villages around it. Between the two sits Stockbridge on the Test, which has no railway any more but does have a High Street where a tipper van and a delivery lorry cannot pass each other. We time those jobs for the middle of the morning.
Three neighbours come up often enough to have pages of their own, and they're the ones that usually share a working day with this one. West along the A343 is Salisbury, over the Wiltshire border and the biggest town in easy reach — house clearance in Salisbury is arranged the same way, often by the same solicitors' offices. South down the A3057 through the Test valley is house clearance in Romsey, a smaller market town where the older centre gives us the same narrow-street parking problem. Further on again, past the M27, house clearance in Eastleigh picks up the railway terraces and the post-war semis. That's the extent of it — we don't claim a corridor, we claim four towns we can actually reach and be back from.
Andover station sits on the West of England line out of London Waterloo, which is how a fair few of the executors we deal with arrive. Down for the day, meet the crew at nine, catch a train back in the afternoon once the house is bare. For us it's the A303 and the A34, and Romsey is a straight run down the A3057 along the Test valley. Test Valley Borough Council covers both towns. Hampshire County Council runs the recycling centres, and the household site in Andover takes what a resident can take there themselves, which is not the same list as what a trade vehicle is allowed to tip.
Housing here is not one thing, and that changes the day. The older streets near the centre are Victorian and pre-war, narrow stairs, no side access, and the van has to sit where the van can legally sit. The town-development estates from the sixties are semis with a garage block behind them and lofts that were boarded at some point and never emptied since. Out in SP11 it's cottages, bungalows and the odd farm building, where the parking is easy and the loft hatch is the size of a shoebox. A bungalow with a full garage and a shed is very often more work than a three-bed house with an empty one, and photographs are the only honest way to tell.
House clearance Andover: the order of the day
The crew arrive at the property for nine in the morning and the aim is to have it cleared that day. There's no need to box or bag anything up first — that trips people up, because they spend a weekend filling sacks that we'd have carried out anyway. Cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, the airing cupboard, under the stairs, the loft, the shed: it all comes out. Carpets and underlay come up if you want them up, and the property gets swept through at the end.
If you'd rather not be there, we pick keys up from an estate agent or a neighbour. The team leader photographs the property on arrival and again once it's empty so there's a record of what was found and what was left. Anything that looks like a document, a photograph album or a bit of jewellery is set aside for the executor rather than loaded — that instruction is standing, we don't need reminding. Occasionally a family asks us to keep an eye out for cash tucked into books or coat pockets. We do, and anything found stays in the property for whoever is dealing with the estate.
Executors, and the people arranging it from somewhere else
Three-quarters of the Test Valley work we do is arranged like that — by an executor, a relative or an agent who isn't local. We pick keys up from an agent or a neighbour, photograph the property on arrival and again once it's empty, and email the pictures over. If something sentimental turns up that the family wants, it gets set aside and posted on rather than thrown.
Probate is the common thread. A probate house clearance is rarely urgent in the way a tenancy end is urgent, but it is usually complicated in other ways. Two or three people in different counties have to agree, a sale is waiting on it, and somebody has to answer to the rest of the family for what happened to the contents. So we work to whoever is named. The invoice can go straight to the solicitor, the attorney or the executor dealing with the estate rather than to a family member, which saves a lot of awkwardness. Waste transfer notes go with it if the file needs them. How the estate side of it runs generally is set out on our probate house clearance page. We've been clearing houses since 2007 and the probate side of it has only grown.
What comes out, where it goes, and what we won't put in the van
Furniture, beds, carpets, kitchen contents, sheds, garage clutter, loft boxes, garden waste and the bits nobody has looked at since the seventies. Anything still usable, we'd rather it went on to somebody than into a hole in the ground. Andover and Romsey both have charity shops and a furniture reuse outfit that will take sound sofas and dining sets if they've been looked after. What can't be reused goes to a permitted transfer station and comes back with paperwork attached to it, load by load, so there's a trail for the estate if anyone asks later.
Some things need separate handling and it's better said before the day than argued about on it. Fridges and freezers count as hazardous because of the gas in them, and they have to be degassed at a permitted facility rather than crushed in with everything else. That's why they get written down one by one. Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating are governed by the persistent organic pollutants rules, which means the padding cannot be mixed in with general waste and has to be sent down its own permitted route. That's not us being awkward, it's the regulation.
Tins of paint, gas canisters, fire extinguishers and car tyres each have to travel separately as well. We can usually take them, but they need declaring so the load is booked in correctly. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and it's worth checking that on any firm you use. If a load ends up fly-tipped in a lay-by on the A303 with an envelope in it bearing the deceased's name, the fine follows the person who handed the waste over.
Full houses and the ones nobody wants to talk about
Some of the properties we're called to haven't been sorted in decades. Rooms with a path through them, a kitchen you can't open the far cupboard in, forty years of paper in the spare bedroom. The crew have seen it before and don't remark on it. The house gets cleared, valuables and documents are set aside for the executor rather than binned, and that's the end of it. A hoarder house clearance takes longer and needs more warning, that's all — it is not a different service and it is certainly not a reason to be embarrassed on the phone.
The kinds of house clearance Andover asks us for
Not every job here is a probate house clearance. Two other sorts come up often enough in SP10 and SP11 to be worth spelling out, because people search for them by name and then can't tell whether we do them. We do.
End of tenancy clearance in Andover
End of tenancy clearance runs to a clock, and that is the whole difference. A landlord or a managing agent has a check-out inventory booked, a set of keys due back, and a flat or a house with a sofa, a bed frame and half a kitchen still in it. What we need to know is the date the property has to be empty by and whether the parking outside is residents-only, because a permit-bay suspension in the older streets near the centre takes notice and can't be arranged on the morning. Everything goes: white goods, beds, carpets if they're coming up, the shed, the bin store. The place is swept through and photographed empty, and the pictures go over the same day so the agent has something to put against the inventory. Tell us what belongs to the landlord and is to stay, and it stays.
Garage and loft clearance in Andover
Garage and loft clearance is a job in its own right around the sixties estates, where the garage sits in a block behind the houses and hasn't been opened properly in years. Half of them have a roof that has let water in, which turns cardboard boxes into something you carry out flat. The lofts on the same estates were boarded at some point and then filled — suitcases, cots, tiles, offcuts of underlay, a water tank that was replaced and never taken down. We bring our own ladder and lighting, because the hatch is often over the stairwell and the bulb has been dead for a decade. Out in the SP11 villages it's the reverse problem: easy parking, plenty of room for the van, and a hatch you can barely get a shoulder through. Either way, tell us it's a loft or a garage when you ring, because it changes how many of us come.
Flat clearance in Andover
Flat clearance is a steady part of the week — the blocks near the town centre and the maisonettes on the estates. Shared front door, a stair that turns, rarely a lift, and a bay outside that a Luton cannot hold all morning. A flat clearance is planned around the carry and the parking rather than the contents, so tell us the floor and whether there is an entry code.
Getting a price
Most people ring after typing house clearance Andover into a phone at a kitchen table, and the honest answer to what it costs is that nobody can give you one from a description like "a three-bed house". Send photographs of each room through the form on this page, or describe the property properly — bedrooms, loft, garage, shed, garden — and you'll get a figure back before anyone commits to anything. Where a house is genuinely hard to judge from pictures, we'll come and look first. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode district and the date you're aiming at, and we'll take it from there.
House clearance Andover: questions we get asked
Do you cover the villages as well as the town? Yes. SP10 for Andover and Charlton, SP11 for Anna Valley, Picket Twenty, Weyhill, Abbotts Ann, Amport, Thruxton, Grateley, Ludgershall and the smaller places out towards Hurstbourne Tarrant. Stockbridge and Romsey are on the same run.
How much does a house clearance in Andover cost? Ring 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of each room through the form on this page and we'll come back to you with a figure. We don't publish numbers, because a number that doesn't match your house is worse than no number at all.
Can you invoice the solicitor handling the estate? Yes. The invoice can go to the solicitor, the attorney or the executor dealing with the estate rather than to a family member, and waste transfer notes can go with it. If the paperwork needs reissuing, re-addressing or posting as a hard copy for the file, the office will do it.
Do we need to clear anything out first? No. Nothing needs boxing or bagging. The team empties cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, takes up carpets and underlay if asked, clears the loft, shed and garage, and sweeps through at the end. Tell us what is to stay and it stays.
Can you take fridges, freezers and sofas? Yes, but they travel down their own permitted routes — fridges and freezers as hazardous waste because of the gas, upholstered seating under the persistent organic pollutants rules. Mention them when you enquire so the loads are booked in correctly.
How long does a house clearance in Andover take? The crew arrive at nine and the aim is one day. A cluttered house, a full loft and a garage can push it to two, which is why the photographs matter — we'd rather tell you that in advance than on the doorstep.
