House clearance in Inverurie splits into two kinds of day before we have even loaded the van. This is Aberdeenshire, and Grampian to anyone who was here before 1996. Half of it is the granite terraces and older semis in the town itself, where nothing parks nearer than the kerb and every stick of furniture is carried out by hand. The other half is farmhouses, steadings and cottages out in the AB51 countryside, where the state of the track matters more than the front door does. We have been clearing houses since 2007, the Garioch is on our run most weeks. Rather than tell you how wonderful we are, here is one of ours.
Late October 2019, a three-bedroom house at Monymusk, ten minutes or so west of Inverurie and well inside AB51. It was a full clearance: one load out, a second load away the same day, and a piano. A piano sets the order of the whole day. You do not carry one past a hall full of boxes, so the route from the room it stands in to the tailgate gets emptied first and the instrument moves when the floor is clear and there is nothing left to walk into. Once the rooms were bare the team cleaned through the house, and then went outside and cut the garden back. The place was being handed on and there was nobody left nearby to do it. The clearance was arranged by somebody living a few miles off in the next postcode district. Is how a great deal of our Aberdeenshire work reaches us.
That is the shape of most house clearance Inverurie asks us for: everything out, the house left swept. Often the garden dealt with in the same visit so the family is not making a second trip north for the sake of a hedge.
The two-day one, and the day we got it wrong
Not every job of ours finishes neatly, and a page that only prints the good days is not worth reading. A three-man team went into one property for two full days. A first load, a further load away the same day, two mattresses run to the mattress recycler, two small fridge freezers taken off to be degassed by a licensed operator. And then we hung on to the keys for the house and garage far longer than we should have. Left bags outside that should have gone on the final load.
The customer had already moved away by then, and was blunt about it: "I need to speak to you urgently concerning the keys to the house/garage as you have not returned them yet. How am I supposed to get into the house??" They had been back to the property, seen the bags still sitting there and photographed them. Fair enough. Then, plainly: "Could you possibly ensure they are sent by first class post as I need them to get in!" So the keys went first class and the team went back for the bags.
We mention it because keys and last loads are exactly what goes wrong on a clearance arranged from a distance. A great deal of our work up here is arranged from a distance. The rule now is dull and it works: keys go back the same week by recorded post or into whatever safe they came from. The team photographs every room and the outside of the property before they pull away.
Where the stuff actually ends up
Anything still usable is offered on before it is binned. The furniture projects and second-hand shops around the Garioch will take decent wardrobes, dining sets, tools and unopened household goods, and it costs us nothing but a detour to drop them off. What is genuinely finished is weighed in at a permitted transfer site and comes back to us as a paper trail. Is the bit that matters if anyone ever asks where an estate's contents went. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and it is worth checking that number against anybody who quotes you, here or anywhere else.
Two categories have to be handled apart from the general load, and there is no way round either. Fridges and freezers must be degassed by a licensed operator before the shell can be crushed. Sofas, armchairs and padded headboards fall under the POP rules. Persistent organic pollutants, meaning the flame retardants in the foam — so upholstery travels separately from everything else and is incinerated under permit rather than shredded. That is legislation, not a rule we invented. Solvents, half-used tins of creosote and gas cylinders go back to the supplier you got them from; the council sites will not take them. Tell us what is in the shed and we will tell you honestly what we can lift and what you will need to run down yourself.
Inverurie, and getting a van to your door
The town has grown a lot, and the two halves of it clear very differently. The granite terraces and older semis around the town centre and down towards Port Elphinstone are tight for a Luton. No driveway, cars both sides, and a loading spot that means walking every item forty yards. The newer estates out at Uryside and up the Blackhall side are the opposite: park on the drive, tailgate down, done by three. Then there is the farmhouse and steading end of it, out towards Pitcaple, Chapel of Garioch, Monymusk and the foot of Bennachie, where the track matters more than the house does. If the last quarter mile is soft, tell us and we will bring the smaller vehicle and shuttle.
Inverurie station is on the Aberdeen to Inverness line and Kintore reopened just down the road, which is why a fair number of the executors we deal with come up by train, meet the team at nine. Go back the same evening with the house empty behind them. If that is your plan, say so when you book. We work to it and get the paperwork done on the day rather than posting it after.
We cover the AB51 villages first — Kemnay, Kintore, Oldmeldrum, Port Elphinstone, Monymusk and Chapel of Garioch — and then out across the wider postcodes of Aberdeenshire: Insch in AB52, Alford in AB33, Turriff in AB53, Ellon in AB41, Westhill in AB32, Huntly in AB54 and Banchory over on Deeside in AB31. Down into Aberdeen itself, from Dyce out to the Bridge of Dee. Thainstone and the A96 make the whole Garioch easy to reach in either direction. If you have landed on the wrong town, house clearance in Aberdeen has a page of its own, and so do house clearance in Huntly up the A96 and house clearance in Banchory over the hill on Deeside.
The kinds of house clearance Inverurie asks us for
Probate house clearance in Inverurie
What people search for as probate house clearance is the commonest work we do in this part of Aberdeenshire. An executor, a house full of a lifetime, and a date by which the keys have to go back to a solicitor or an agent. We will deal with the solicitor or the executor direct, send the waste transfer paperwork to whoever is keeping the file. Set aside anything that looks like documents, photographs or jewellery on a table for the family rather than binning it. Scotland has its own name for the legal stage — that is the next section.
End of tenancy clearance in Inverurie
Landlords and letting agents ring us for end of tenancy work when a let is handed back with half the contents still in it: a sofa nobody wanted to shift, a shed full, a fridge left running. We take the lot, sweep through and photograph the empty rooms so there is a record of how the property was left. There is a fair amount of let property around the town centre and out on the newer estates. An end of tenancy clearance is usually a single day.
Garage and loft clearance in Inverurie
Plenty of calls are not a whole house at all. A garage and loft clearance, with the house itself still lived in, is a job in its own right and we are happy to come out for one. Lofts up here tend to be boarded and full. Decorations, forty years of paperwork, a cot that three generations used. Garages hold the mower, the paint and everything nobody could face taking to the tip. We will tell you before we start which of the tins and cylinders in there we are not allowed to carry.
Executors, Confirmation and getting paid
Scotland does this differently and it catches people out. Where an English estate needs a Grant of Probate, here it is Confirmation, and the estate cannot be ingathered. Never mind its debts settled — until the sheriff court has granted it. That can take months, and it is why a probate clearance in Inverurie is very often booked long before the legal side is anywhere near finished.
We are set up for that. We will work with the executor, the solicitor or an attorney direct, and we keep in touch rather than chase. A note roughly a month before the date, not a call every fortnight. Waste transfer notes and photographs of the emptied rooms go to whoever is keeping the estate file. That is what gets asked for later. If the date moves because the court is slow or the sale is quick, tell us and we will move with it.
Price, and houses that have got away from people
On cost the answer is short. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs through the form on this page, and you will get a figure for your house. With the loft, the garage and the piano, if there is one, all counted in. If what we find on the day changes it, we will tell you before we start loading, not after.
Some of the houses out here have not been emptied in fifty years. Some have filled up in ways the family finds difficult to talk about on the phone. We turn up, we get on with it and nobody passes remarks. There is no need to bag anything beforehand, no need to be embarrassed about the state of a back bedroom. Anything that looks like documents, photographs or jewellery is set aside for you rather than thrown.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Inverurie
Do you take on probate house clearance in Inverurie?
Yes, and it is a large part of the work. We will talk to the executor or the solicitor, work to the date the estate needs. Hand over the waste transfer paperwork for the file afterwards.
How long does a house clearance in Inverurie take?
Most are one day. Two days happens where a property is genuinely full, where there is a garage and loft as well as the house, or where the van cannot get near the door and everything is being carried. We will say which we think it is before you book, and we will say if we get it wrong.
Will you clear a garage and loft without touching the house?
Yes. Garage and loft clearance on its own is a normal booking. So is a single heavy item like a piano or a stair lift that has already been disconnected.
Do you cover the villages as well as the town?
Yes — the AB51 places first, Kemnay, Kintore, Oldmeldrum, Port Elphinstone, Monymusk and Chapel of Garioch. Then the wider Aberdeenshire postcodes and Aberdeen itself.
Who gets the invoice on a probate clearance?
We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Nobody has to put a house clearance on their own card and claim it back. Payment can come out of the estate, there is no deposit. The invoice follows the work rather than the booking.
What will you not take?
Solvents, gas cylinders, half-used creosote and anything that counts as hazardous waste have to go back where they came from. Everything else — furniture, white goods, upholstery, mattresses, garden rubbish, the contents of a loft nobody has opened since the nineties — is ours to deal with.
Ring 0800 046 5555 with the postcode, the number of bedrooms and whether the loft and garage are in it, or send us photographs through the form on this page. We will take it from there.
