Most house clearance in Dover starts with a set of keys and a date. Somebody has a completion looming, or a tenancy ending, or a parent's house standing empty up on the hill with forty years of belongings still inside it. We have been clearing properties in Kent since 2007, and Dover — CT15, CT16 and CT17 — is a regular run for our vans. What follows is what a house clearance in Dover actually looks like, rather than a list of promises.
A three-bedroom house clearance in Aycliffe, CT17
The job went in the diary for the middle of October 2022: a three-bedroom house in Aycliffe, on the western slopes of the town, arranged by a daughter living in London who could not be there herself. She had first written the previous August. That is normal for house clearance in Dover — the enquiry comes weeks ahead, tied to a sale, and the date only firms up once the buyers stop moving it.
One line of her booking email decided how we crewed the day: "please note there is an upright piano to be removed".
An upright standing in a ground-floor lounge is the single item most likely to turn a straightforward day into an awkward one. The weight sits high and towards the back, it will not go down a step on a sack barrow without three pairs of hands, and it is the one thing you cannot discover at ten past nine and simply work around. Told in advance, it is a twenty-minute problem. Found on the day, it can cost you the afternoon.
The rest of her instructions were as clear as that one. Everything inside to be cleared. One item of furniture in the loft, nothing in the garden and nothing in the shed. Rugs up and away, curtains to stay, the white goods in the kitchen to stay for the buyers. A relative met the crew at nine and stayed on to instruct them, which is the arrangement we prefer when the person organising everything is two hours up the line. A phone call a couple of days beforehand added the old dishwasher to the list. That happens on most jobs and it is never a problem. We just need to hear about it before the van is loaded.
There were no parking restrictions outside, which around here is worth checking rather than assuming. Photographs of every room, before and after, went to London the same day.
Who gets the invoice
On a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate once probate allows it. There is no deposit and nothing is asked for before the work is done.
Where the contents of a Dover house clearance end up
Anything still usable is offered round the coastal charity shops and furniture reuse schemes first. What nobody wants goes to a permitted transfer station and is weighed and paperworked there, and we will hand you the waste transfer note if you want it for the estate file. Our waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679, and it is worth checking that number — or anybody else's — before a van drives off with a houseful of possessions. Fly-tipped estate furniture has a habit of being traced back to whoever owned it.
Where we go around Dover, and how we get there
Our own patch is the three Dover districts. CT16 is the town centre and the north side — Buckland, Tower Hamlets, Charlton, River, Kearsney and Whitfield. CT17 takes in Maxton, Elms Vale and Aycliffe, running down the western side towards the harbour. CT15 is the villages and the cliff-top: St Margaret's at Cliffe, Martin Mill, Shepherdswell, Eythorne and Alkham.
Beyond that we work the coast either side. CT14 covers Deal, Walmer and Kingsdown. CT19 and CT20 are Folkestone and Sandgate, CT21 is Hythe. CT2 takes in Canterbury and the villages round it. CT5 is Whitstable and Tankerton, CT6 Herne Bay. Round the Thanet coast it is CT9 at Margate, CT10 at Broadstairs, and CT11 and CT12 for Ramsgate and Minster. Sandwich, Aylesham and Capel-le-Ferne all sit inside that patch too. Several of those towns have pages of their own: house clearance in Folkestone, house clearance in Canterbury, house clearance in Margate and, further round towards the Swale, house clearance in Sittingbourne.
Vans come down the A2 and the M20, so anywhere within about a forty-minute run of Dover is straightforward for us. Executors arriving by train usually come into Dover Priory, and there are two more stations inside CT15 at Martin Mill and Shepherds Well, which matters if you are meeting us with a key and going straight back. Dover District Council handles the housing side of things; Kent County Council runs the household waste sites, including the one at Whitfield just outside the town. Those tips are for householders with a car boot — they are not a route for a full property clearance, and a van turning up with a bungalow in the back will be turned away.
The kinds of house clearance we are asked for in Dover
Probate house clearance in Dover
A good half of our Dover work is probate. The pattern rarely changes: the person dealing with the estate lives somewhere else, the house is on the market, and there is a date by which it has to be empty. For a probate house clearance we can take keys from a neighbour, a solicitor's office or a managing agent, work through the house without you standing in it, and send photographs of every room once it is done. Anything of obvious sentimental value — papers, photographs, medals, slides — gets set aside and flagged rather than loaded. If probate has not been granted yet, and you only want the perishables and the garden waste dealt with for now, say so. That is a smaller visit. We would rather come twice than clear something you had not agreed to.
Garage and loft clearance in Dover
Garage and loft clearance is where estimates go wrong, and Dover has plenty of both — pre-war semis with proper roof space, and lock-ups on the terraced streets that nobody has opened since the last owner stopped driving. So when you ring, please look in both. Tell us if the loft is boarded or bare joists, whether there is a proper ladder or a chair and a hatch, and whether the garage door still lifts. A garage and loft clearance handled with the house on the same day is a much shorter job than a return visit a fortnight later.
Hoarder house clearance, and what five days on one property looks like
Houses that have filled up quietly over twenty years are a normal part of our week, not a special case, and there is no lecture and no raised eyebrows from the crew. What matters is estimating them honestly.
One hoarder house clearance we handled ran to five working days, spread across a fortnight. It started at the end of September with one day booked. Three van loads went out that first day, and the same again on each of the days after it. Three mattresses came out over the course of the job. The customer came to look part-way through, saw how much was still standing, and booked further days there and then. That is the right way round. It beats a crew quietly running out of time at four o'clock. A clean was booked for the end of it, once the rooms were empty enough to see the floor.
We would rather tell you at the door that a property is a three-day job than start it as a one-day job and leave you with half a house. If you describe three bedrooms plus a loft and a garage, we will say out loud that it is likely more than a single load and quite possibly more than a single day.
Flat clearance and end of tenancy clearance in Dover
Flats above the shops in the town centre, sheltered schemes out at Buckland and River, and end of tenancy work for landlords — that is the other half of the diary. A flat clearance is usually about the stairs and the street rather than the contents: whether there is a lift, how many flights, and where a Luton can legally stand while three men walk furniture down. The lanes and terraces in the older parts of Dover were laid out for carts, not for a three-and-a-half-tonne van. If you know there is a restriction, tell us when you book. If you do not know, say so and we will work it out with you. What we would rather not do is discover it at five past nine with the ramp already down.
Fridges, sofas and the things we have to handle separately
Fridges and freezers count as hazardous waste because of the gas in them, so they are handled and recorded on their own rather than tipped in with the rest of a load. Upholstered furniture is its own problem: sofas, armchairs and mattresses have to be kept out of the general load and sent for their own treatment, because of the fire-retardant chemicals sitting in the padding. Those are the POPs rules, in force since January 2023, not a preference of ours.
Paint tins, gas cylinders, oil, asbestos sheeting off an old garage roof — none of that can travel in a mixed van load. Say what is in the shed when you ring and we will tell you what we can take and where the rest needs to go. Nobody enjoys finding out on the day.
Questions we are asked about house clearance in Dover
Do you clear the villages as well as the town? Yes. CT15 is as ordinary a day for us as CT16 or CT17, and a house at St Margaret's at Cliffe or out at Eythorne is no harder to reach than one in Buckland.
Can you do a probate house clearance if the executor lives away? That is most of them. Keys can come from a neighbour, a solicitor's office or an agent, and the photographs of the empty rooms can be with you the same afternoon.
Can we keep the carpets, or the cooker? Of course — tell us what stays and it stays. Instructions like curtains remaining and white goods being left for the buyers are written on the job sheet before the crew leaves the yard.
Will you take a single piano, or one item? Yes, single-item collections and furniture removal are part of what we do, and so is house rubbish removal where there is no full clearance involved.
Do you provide a waste transfer note? On request, always. It is the document that proves where the contents of the house went.
How do I find out what it will cost? Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send us photographs through the form on this page — hallway, worst cupboard, loft hatch, garage — and we will give you a figure.
Getting a Dover house clearance in the diary
Tell us the postcode district, whether there is anywhere for a Luton to stand, and whether anyone will be there or we are working from a key safe. Mention the piano, the lock-up, the loft, the shed, and anything you want left where it is. We are insured while we are working in your property, and our carrier registration is above. We have been doing this since 2007. Long enough to know that the surprises on a house clearance in Dover are nearly always in the garage.
