House clearance in Arbroath is a good share of what we do along this stretch of the Angus coast — Tayside, as the region was — and it has been since 2007. The town and the villages round it are DD11, and DD11 is where our Arbroath work sits — a three-man team, a Luton van, and a start time agreed before anyone sets off. If you want a quote for a house clearance in Arbroath, ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send the details through the form on this page and we'll come back to you.
The biggest job we've done in Angus
Back in June 2019 we spent days out at a shut-up golf resort a few miles inland from the town, out past Colliston, still in the DD11 district. Mansion house, hotel accommodation blocks, a curling rink, cellars, an engine room. A 40-yard roll-on roll-off skip sat on site and we filled it. Headboards, dressers, framed pictures, fridges, televisions, and carpets lifted room by room from the hotel floors and the rink building. There were sheds full of odds and ends. Some steel racking in one of them we left where it stood, by agreement, and it was still standing when we drove out at the end. Work like that runs on lists and photographs going back and forth — this block done, that one not, these carpets still down in the rink, those fridges still sitting outside. Seventeen messages before the final sweep-up was agreed.
One item on site was not to be touched, and it wasn't. So the Bentley stayed exactly where it was.
Nobody needs a resort cleared every week. But that job is why we don't flinch at a four-bedroom house with a full loft and a garage you can't open the door of. Scale is a logistics problem, not a mystery.
Where we go in Angus, and how we get there
Arbroath sits on the coast between Carnoustie and Montrose, and we work the whole run of it. DD11 for the town itself and the villages round it — Colliston, Friockheim, Inverkeilor, Auchmithie up the cliffs. DD7 for Carnoustie. DD8 covers house clearance in Forfar, Glamis, Letham and Kirriemuir inland, DD9 takes in house clearance in Brechin and Edzell, and DD10 is house clearance in Montrose, Hillside and St Cyrus. Down the coast the bigger run is house clearance in Dundee. Most of it is Angus Council territory; Dundee and Broughty Ferry are Dundee City Council. All of it is within a sensible drive for a three-man team and a Luton van, though a house clearance in Arbroath itself is the one we're asked for most.
Teams travel up rather than sitting locally, so we agree a start time before anyone sets off. Arbroath station is on the Dundee to Aberdeen line, which matters more than you'd think — a fair number of the executors and family members we deal with come in by train for the day, hand over a key, and go back the same evening. Carnoustie and Montrose stations are on the same line. If you'd rather not be there at all, a key from a neighbour, a key safe or a solicitor's office works just as well, and you get the photographs instead.
The houses here, and the access
The old streets down at the Fit o' the Toon behind the harbour are narrow, cobbled in places, and were built long before anyone imagined a 3.5-tonne van needing to stop outside. We walk it first, park where a van can legally sit, and carry. Up the hill it's easier — the semis and terraces around Hayshead, Timmergreens, Cliffburn and Warddykes usually give us a driveway or a kerb we can use, and the bungalows out toward the West Links and Keptie tend to have room at the front.
Flat clearance in DD11 is mostly the town-centre sort: a stone stair with one turn too tight for a wardrobe, or a flat above a shop whose only door opens onto the pavement. We take furniture apart in the room rather than fight it on the landing. End of tenancy clearance is the other regular one — a letting agent or a landlord wants the place empty and swept by a date, and that date is usually not negotiable, so we book it early and turn up when we said we would.
Stairs, tight landings, a boarded loft with a hatch you can barely get a shoulder through: none of that stops the job. It decides how tired everyone is by four o'clock, and that's all it decides. Garage and loft clearance in Arbroath is often the whole instruction on its own — the house has been lived in and looked after, and it's the loft, the garage and the shed that nobody has been up or into since about 2009.
What we take, and where it ends up
Furniture, beds, mattresses, wardrobes emptied and dismantled, carpets and underlay lifted, kitchen cupboards emptied of forty years of tins, garden sheds, garage shelving, lawnmowers, sacks of clothing, boxes of paperwork, white goods. Fridges and freezers come out under the degassing rules — a chest freezer still full of food is a job we've done more than once and it's fine, just tell us in advance so the team brings the right gear.
Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating are handled under the persistent organic pollutant regulations, which came in for good reason and mean that soft furniture can't simply be tipped with general waste. It travels separately and it's incinerated under permit. We'll tell you which pieces in your house fall under it before we start, so nothing on the day comes as a surprise.
Sound furniture, tools, crockery and anything genuinely usable we try to keep out of the waste stream altogether — Angus has enough charity shops and community reuse projects that a decent wardrobe rarely needs to become rubbish. What's left travels to a permitted transfer station where it's weighed, sorted and recorded, and we keep the transfer notes. Every house clearance in Arbroath goes out under the same registration: Environment Agency waste carrier registration CBDU419679.
Two things we can't put in an ordinary load: paint tins and solvents, and gas bottles. Same for asbestos sheeting in an old coal shed. These need their own disposal route, we'll tell you on the day what's involved, and we've never yet met a household chemical cupboard that couldn't be sorted with a phone call or two.
When the clearance is all outside the house
Not every clearance is indoors. One we did barely went past the back door: front garden, side garden and back garden all to be cleared, plus the contents of the garage, the contents of the summer house and the contents of the shed. The greenhouse was down to its frame by then, and the booking form said plainly what was to happen to it — "Frame of the greenhouse to be dismantled and removed". So it came apart bar by bar and went on the van in pieces.
White goods were part of it too: two under-counter sized fridges or freezers, and whatever else of that sort could be taken was to be taken. Fridges and freezers of any size go into the regulated stream and are degassed rather than crushed in with the rest, so they get counted on their own when the loads are planned and they travel that way.
One thing was to stay, and the form said so in seven words: "2 seater garden bench in front garden". It stayed. That is exactly the kind of line worth writing down when you book, because a garden clearance moves quickly and a bench sitting out at the front looks like everything else we're taking unless somebody has said otherwise.
Parking, for once, was nobody's problem — two driveways we could use, so the van sat at the house and the walk was a few yards rather than a few hundred. Asked about hazards, the answer on the form was honest enough: "Not that I am aware". That's what most people write, and we look anyway, because the thing at the back of the shed is often a half-drum of creosote and it needs its own route out.
They also asked us to look at the garden itself while we were there and quote for cutting back what had got away over a season or two. It's a common enough combination — shed and garage emptied, greenhouse gone, garden cut back — and by the end of it the outside of a house stops looking neglected, which matters if it's about to be sold or let.
Hoarder house clearance in Arbroath is the same work with a great deal more of it. Overfilled houses, the ones where a path has worn between the boxes, we treat exactly as any other clearance. Nobody comments. It takes the number of loads it takes.
Executors, probate and how the day runs
Probate house clearance in Arbroath is a large part of the diary, and in Scotland it's confirmation rather than probate, though people say both and we answer to either. Where a death is involved we can invoice the executor, the solicitor handling the estate, or an administrator where there was no will, and we allow a long settlement period because Scottish estates rarely release funds quickly. We've waited months on that basis before now without chasing anyone weekly. If you're an executor two hundred miles away, that arrangement plus a key safe is usually the whole of your involvement.
You get a quote before anything is booked, worked out from what you tell us about the property and, where it helps, a few photographs sent through the form or on WhatsApp. Nothing about a probate clearance needs you standing in the hall — we send photographs of every cleared room by email that evening, which is what we do whenever the person instructing us isn't on site.
The team arrives in the morning, walks the property with you or with whoever holds the key, gives an honest read of how many loads it looks like, and starts. Photographs before and after. Floors swept through at the end. If there are papers, photographs or small items of sentimental value to be found and kept, say so first thing and they'll be set aside rather than bagged.
Common questions about house clearance in Arbroath
Do you cover the villages as well as the town?
Yes. DD11 takes in Colliston, Friockheim, Inverkeilor and Auchmithie as well as Arbroath itself, and a cottage up a farm track is treated the same as a house in the town — the van goes where the van can go, and the rest we carry.
Can you invoice the solicitor handling the estate?
We can. For a probate house clearance we invoice the executor, the solicitor or the administrator directly, and we're used to estates that settle slowly. Tell us at the quote stage who the invoice should go to.
Do I need to be there on the day?
No. A key from a neighbour, a key safe, or a key left with a solicitor all work. You get photographs of every room by email the same evening, and a call if we find anything you'd want to see before it goes.
How long does a house clearance in Arbroath take?
Most three-bedroom houses are a day. A four-bedroom with a full loft, a garage and a shed can run into a second day, and a shut-up golf resort takes rather longer than that. We'll tell you which we think it is before we book, and we'd rather over-estimate the time than turn up and rush you.
What can't you take away?
Paint, solvents, gas bottles and asbestos sheeting all need their own disposal route and can't travel in an ordinary load. Fridges, freezers and upholstered furniture can travel, but under separate rules — degassing for the first, the persistent organic pollutant regulations for the second.
Do you clear garages, lofts and gardens as well as the house?
Yes, and often that's the whole instruction. Garage and loft clearance in Arbroath, a shed and a summer house, a greenhouse frame to be dismantled, a garden cut back while we're on site — all of it is normal work and it goes in the same quote.
To arrange a house clearance in Arbroath, Carnoustie, Forfar, Brechin, Montrose or anywhere else across Angus, ring 0800 046 5555 or send the address, the number of bedrooms and roughly what's still in the place through the form on this page. We'll give you a quote and a date, and you'll know exactly who's turning up.
