November 2020, a converted coach house in NR19, and a fair example of how a house clearance in Dereham usually starts. The person instructing us was living over in Cambridgeshire and could not easily get across for the day, so most of it was settled by email and photograph before anybody turned up with a van. The contents came out in a single van load. Two mattresses and a small fridge freezer were in among them, and those two were written up on their own lines when the job was booked — the paperwork for that day says "Small Fridge Freezer" on a line of its own rather than folding it in with the wardrobes — because both are handled under their own rules once they leave the property.
A fridge or a freezer is hazardous waste and goes for degassing. A mattress cannot be compacted in with the rest and goes through the stream that will take it. Neither is the sort of thing people think to mention when they first ring, and both change how the van is packed and where the day ends up finishing.
Because the person instructing us was not in Norfolk at all, the room-by-room photographs before we started and again once the rooms were empty mattered more than usual. That is ordinary here rather than unusual. A fair share of Dereham house clearance work is instructed by somebody two or three counties away, who sees the empty rooms for the first time in an email. It is also why we would rather look at pictures of every room, the loft hatch, the garage and the shed than guess down the phone.
That is the sort of work we do out this way, and Dereham sits right in the middle of it. We have been clearing houses since 2007, and most weeks there is a van of ours somewhere in NR19 or NR20. A full house clearance in Dereham itself, a loft and a garage out in one of the villages, or two rooms where the family has already done the rest themselves.
The town, and the houses in it
Dereham is a Norfolk market town in the Breckland district, NR19 for the town itself and NR20 for the villages that ring it. Mattishall, North Elmham, Swanton Morley, Gressenhall, Beetley, Bawdeswell, Foxley, Bintree, Lyng and North Tuddenham among them. Toftwood and Scarning are close enough to feel like part of the town, and Etling Green, Dumpling Green, Yaxham and Badley Moor sit out on the NR19 edge of it. The building stock is mixed in a way that matters to us. Flint and red brick cottages off the older lanes with narrow stairs and low doorframes, long runs of post-war and 1970s estate housing. Bungalows around the outside, which are usually the easiest clearances we do. No stairs, a driveway, and usually a garage and a shed that hold more than the house does.
Parking decides more of the day than most people expect. A Luton van needs somewhere to stand with its tail lift down, and the lanes behind the market place do not always offer it, so we ask about parking before we ask about bedrooms. A flat clearance over the shops in Dereham town centre means everything comes down one staircase, which is slower but perfectly doable. Out in the NR20 villages the trouble is rarely the house and usually the approach — a soft verge, a farm track, a gateway a van will not turn in. Tell us on the phone and the crew brings barrows and comes in a vehicle that fits.
The A47 runs past the southern edge, so we come in from either the King's Lynn side or the Norwich side depending on where the previous day finished. Dereham has no National Rail platform any more. The Mid-Norfolk Railway runs heritage trains from the old station down towards Wymondham Abbey, and if you are meeting us off a train it is Wymondham you want, on the Norwich to Ely and Cambridge line. Thetford station serves the southern half of Breckland. We mention it because a fair number of the people who instruct us are not in Norfolk at all, and want to know how they would get here if they had to.
Empty houses, and the keys to them
A good share of what we clear in Dereham has been standing empty for months, sometimes since a funeral the winter before. The furniture is never the difficult part of an empty house. The power is usually switched off rather than cut off. The water with it, and if the electric runs on a card meter or the board has been left tripped it is worth saying so when you book. That sounds like a small thing. It is not. A house with no light in November is a house you clear with head torches, and it takes longer.
Keys are the other one. We will collect keys from a high-street agent, a neighbour, a family member or a solicitor's office. Our lads carry ID so that whoever is on the desk can be certain they are handing them to the right people. Keys go back the same day where that is the arrangement, or in the post afterwards where it is not. If you cannot be at the property, you get photographs of every room before we start and every room once it is empty.
A good part of the house clearance work we do in Dereham is probate work, and probate runs to somebody else's timetable — the grant, the sale, the completion date. We take instructions from executors and from the solicitors' offices acting for them, and we work to the date they are tied to rather than the date that suits us. Executors are often three counties away and cannot keep driving over, which is why the photographs and the key arrangements above exist at all. If items have to be set aside for the family rather than cleared, say so before the day and the team will put them in one room and leave them there.
What comes out, and where it goes
Furniture in usable condition, tools, crockery, books, clean bedding. Anything still fit for a second home we try to get in front of a charity shop or a community reuse scheme rather than a grab bucket. What is genuinely finished with goes to a permitted transfer station and is weighed and ticketed, and we keep those tickets. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679 and you are welcome to check it against the Environment Agency register before you book. Norfolk County Council's own recycling centre off Rash's Green takes household loads if you would rather run a car boot's worth down yourself. What we handle in a Dereham house clearance is everything past what a car boot can manage.
Some things ride separately or not at all. Fridges and freezers are hazardous waste and go for degassing, so they are counted and handled on their own rather than tipped in with the rest. Sofas, armchairs, padded headboards, footstools, garden seat cushions — upholstery has to be routed through its own regulated stream because of the flame retardants in the foam, so each padded item is recorded separately. Tins of paint, gas canisters, fire extinguishers and car tyres are the same story: they can go, but not tucked in among the wardrobes. Say what you have when you ring and it is on the list from the start.
The kinds of house clearance in Dereham we get called out for
Probate house clearance in Dereham
Most of the estate work on this patch comes to us the same way: a grant has come through, a completion date has been set, and the house has to be empty before it. For a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, so nobody has to put their own card down for a house that is not theirs. Payment can come out of the estate when the estate is in funds. There is no deposit and nothing to pay up front. We will send the waste transfer paperwork with the invoice if the file needs it, and probate files usually do.
Flat clearance in NR19
There are more flats in the middle of Dereham than people from outside the town expect — over the shops, in the older converted buildings off the market place, and in the small purpose-built blocks. A flat clearance is nearly always about the stairs and the front door rather than the volume, and about where the van can legally stand while the two of them are going up and down. Tell us which floor and whether there is a shared entrance.
Garage and loft clearance in Dereham and the villages
Half the calls we take are not for the whole house at all. Garage and loft clearance is a job in its own right out here, particularly on the bungalows around the edge of NR19 and in the NR20 villages. Where The loft has been filled for thirty years and the garage has not had a car in it since the eighties. If the ladder is not safe, say so and the crew will bring their own.
End of tenancy clearance in NR19 and NR20
Landlords and letting agents ring us when a tenancy has ended badly or the tenant has gone leaving the place furnished. An end of tenancy clearance runs to a shorter fuse than a probate one — the check-out is booked, the works are booked behind it, and everything has to be out in between. We will photograph the property as we found it and as we left it, which settles most arguments before they start.
What it costs, and why
Two houses in Dereham that look identical from the road can be a full day apart once you are inside them, so we do not carry a printed answer to that question. What we carry is a straight way of getting you one. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through with somebody who books these jobs every day, or send photographs of each room, the loft hatch, the garage and the shed through the form on this page. You will get a figure back. We would rather work from photographs than guess over the phone, and rather stand in the property than either, and no salesman will be turning up on your doorstep to talk you into anything.
Days that run over, and houses that are full
Sometimes one day is not enough, and it is usually the transfer station clock rather than the house that decides it. Breckland is a big, thinly populated district. The run back with a full van from the far villages is not short, and a site that shuts in the late afternoon does not care how much is still standing on the pavement. When that happens the crew comes back the following morning and finishes it. We ring before we leave rather than after, because finding out at nine the next day that your completion has slipped is nobody's idea of a service.
Hoarder house clearance is the other reason a day turns into two. Properties that have quietly filled up over thirty or forty years, cluttered to the point where the doors will only open halfway, get the same crew and the same tone of voice. Nobody comments, nobody photographs anything except for the job record, and nothing gets mentioned to the neighbours. If there is cash, jewellery or paperwork somewhere in it, tell us and the team will search for it and set it aside. We have handed back bundles of documents, laptops and boxes of family photographs from houses that looked like there was nothing left worth having.
Where else we go from here
The same run covers Thetford in IP24, Attleborough in NR17 and Swaffham in PE37, along with Watton, Hingham, Shipdham, Necton and the villages in between. Breckland is a big, thinly populated district and we plan the day around the drive, which is why we set out early and are usually at the door for nine. If your property is at the southern end of it, house clearance in Thetford is the page you want. Out towards Norwich we cover house clearance in Wymondham, which is also where you would get off the train. Further south, over the Suffolk border, house clearance in Barking. The Suffolk village of that name, not the London one — is on the same list, though that is a longer drive and a day we plan on its own.
Questions we are asked about house clearance in Dereham
Can you invoice the solicitor or the executor?
Yes. On probate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate rather than out of anybody's own pocket. There is no deposit, and nothing is payable before the work is done.
Do we have to be there on the day?
No. Plenty of the people who instruct us live nowhere near Norfolk. We collect the keys from an agent, a neighbour, a family member or a solicitor's office, send photographs of every room before and after, and return the keys where they came from.
How much notice do you need for a house clearance in Dereham?
Usually a few days, and less than that if a van is already coming out this way. Tell us the completion or check-out date when you ring and we will tell you honestly whether we can hold it.
Can you clear just a garage, a loft or one room?
Yes, and we often do. Garage and loft clearance, a single room, a shed, or the contents of one outbuilding are all normal bookings — you do not have to hand over the whole house.
What will you not put in the van?
Nothing goes in among the household contents that the law says must travel on its own: fridges and freezers, upholstered furniture, paint, gas canisters, fire extinguishers and car tyres. They can all still go, they just travel and are recorded separately. Asbestos we will not touch at all, and we will say so plainly rather than take it away and hope.
Ring us with what you know — the number of bedrooms, whether there is a loft, garage or shed, what the parking is like for a Luton van, and anything that needs to stay. Send a few photographs if you can. Whether it is a full house clearance in Dereham, one room in a village off the NR20 lanes, or a garage nobody has opened since the funeral, you will get a real answer back from somebody who has done it. On 0800 046 5555, or through the form on this page.
