How to choose a house clearance company: licence, paperwork, price

The one check that is not optional

Anyone who carries waste for money must hold a waste carrier licence — from the Environment Agency in England, SEPA in Scotland, Natural Resources Wales, or the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. The registers are public and a search takes a minute. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 you carry a duty of care for your own waste; if an unlicensed clearer fly-tips it, the fine can land on you. Ask for the licence number before the quote, not after the van has gone.

The second piece of paper

After the job, a waste transfer note: what was taken, by whom, and where it went. It is your proof that the duty of care passed to a licensed carrier. A firm that cannot produce one, or looks puzzled by the question, is not a firm to use however good the price. Keep it — in a probate clearance, the executor may need to show it.

What a proper quote includes

• A fixed price after seeing the job — in person or from photographs of every room, the loft, the garage and the garden.
• What is included: all rooms, outbuildings, garden waste, white goods, carpets — and what is not.
• How hazardous items are handled and priced: asbestos-cement roofs, paint, chemicals, fridges and freezers.
• Whether items of resale value are offset against the price, and how that is agreed.
• The crew size, the number of loads and the days it will take.
• Where the waste goes — a good firm will say what it reuses, recycles and donates, and will not need to be asked twice.

Questions worth asking

1. What is your waste carrier licence number?
2. Will I get a waste transfer note?
3. What happens to documents, photographs and anything of value you find?
4. Does the price change if there is more than you expected — and how do you decide?
5. Do you clean afterwards, or just clear?
6. Can you do it on a day I am not there, and how will you get in?

Red flags

• No licence number, or a reluctance to give one.
• Cash only, or a price that is a fraction of everyone else's.
• A quote for a whole house from a phone call with no photographs.
• A leaflet through the door with a mobile number and no company name.
• An unmarked van and no paperwork of any kind.

Probate and hoarded homes

Clearing a relative's home is the same job at a different pace. Do not clear before the estate has been valued — HMRC needs date-of-death values for the contents. Use a firm that sorts rather than skips, sets documents and valuables aside, and receipts donations. Hoarded properties need a firm that has done them before, with the right disposal routes for spoiled food or pest activity and the patience to go at the household's pace. Say so when you ask for quotes and the right firms will respond.