House clearance in Exeter is mostly old houses and absent owners, and one job in Heavitree sums up both. A terraced house in EX1 took us two loads in a single day back in January 2020. The instruction didn't come from Exeter at all — it came from a probate department up near Bristol, acting for the estate, and nobody local was going to be there to open up. That's normal for us.
The team started on the ground floor, worked back through the kitchen, then upstairs. The second van load went out the same afternoon rather than us coming back another day. The person handling the estate had explained on the telephone how the account would be dealt with, then put it in writing: "As specified on the telephone and in my email dated 16/12, payment will be made once there are funds in the estate. Your outstanding balance has been noted as a liability of the estate." That is probate work in one sentence, and it is how a great many of ours run.
That job says most of what there is to say about how house clearance in Exeter actually works for us. The properties are old. A lot of the housing in EX1 and EX2 is Victorian and Edwardian terrace: narrow hall, steep stairs, small back garden with a shed in it. And the person paying is very often somewhere else entirely.
What comes out of a Devon house
People ask what we take. Ordinary household contents, is the short answer: furniture, beds, white goods, the contents of cupboards and wardrobes, what has collected in the shed. What we need told in advance is what is staying, because that is the thing nobody thinks to say until the van is half loaded.
The second Exeter job worth telling is a flat clearance in EX4, north of the city centre. The instruction for that one came from Cambridge — the person arranging it had no intention of driving to Devon and no reason to. It ran to two loads in the same day, and there was a mattress in it, which never travels mixed in with everything else. Flats change the day rather than the work: a shared entrance, a stair with a turn in it, and a van that has to sit somewhere sensible while two men walk the same twenty yards two hundred times. Nothing about it was difficult. It was simply arranged, done and reported back to somebody two hundred miles away.
Garage and loft clearance in Exeter
Garage and loft clearance is the part people forget when they describe a property to us over the phone, and it is the part that changes a day most. A three-bed terrace with an empty loft and a three-bed terrace with a loft that has been filled since the seventies are two different jobs. Same with a garage nobody has opened for years, or a shed at the bottom of a long thin Heavitree garden that everything has to be carried up from. Tell us there is a loft, a garage or a shed in it and roughly what state they're in, and the day gets planned properly. Tell us on the morning and the team leader will say so straight away rather than letting you find out afterwards.
Access, drives and the route through the house
Devon jobs are rarely about a lift. They're about a lane, a drive, or a street where the van can't stop. Where there's a long drive or a lane to back down, tell us in advance: it changes where the van sits and the order we empty the rooms in.
Parking is the other one. Plenty of Exeter and east Devon houses have a front drive that swallows a Luton van without any bother, and where that's the case the van sits on the drive and loading starts straight away. In the terraces around Heavitree, or over towards St Thomas and Exwick, it can be a permit street and a walk of thirty or forty yards to the tailgate. Up on the Pennsylvania side there are roads where a van will fit but not turn. Tell us which it is and the day gets planned around it.
We start at 9am unless we've agreed otherwise, and a straightforward house clearance in Exeter is usually a single day with the loads going out as they're filled. Heavily filled properties take two. Houses that have got badly overfilled, where the hallway is down to a foot wide, we clear those regularly and the team gets on with it quietly — that is hoarder work and it is a longer booking, not a different service. It isn't a problem and it isn't commented on.
When nobody in Devon holds a key
Both the Exeter jobs above were run from another county — one from a probate department near Bristol, one from Cambridge — and that is the ordinary pattern rather than the exception. Executors in London, Hertfordshire, the Midlands; solicitors handling probate for a family who have not lived in Devon for thirty years. A round trip just to open a door makes no sense to anybody, so the arrangements, the instructions about what is staying and the paperwork all move by email.
It works perfectly well as long as somebody has told us what is staying — carpets, curtains, white goods, a piece of furniture that is going to a relative. A neighbour, an agent or a solicitor's own key release is enough to get us in. We photograph the property empty at the end and send that through, which is what an executor at a distance actually wants: evidence the house is clear and ready for the agent. If you want the detail of how probate clearances are handled, our probate house clearance page covers it, and the heavier end is on the hoarder house clearance page.
Where the contents go
Anything still usable — furniture in decent order, crockery, tools, books, unopened bits from the kitchen — goes to a charity shop or a reuse project in Devon rather than into a skip. The team sets it aside as they load. What's genuinely finished with goes to a permitted transfer station and gets weighed and recorded. We're a registered waste carrier, licence CBDU419679, fully insured, and the Waste Transfer Note comes to you afterwards. It can take a fortnight to come back from the recycling centre; we chase it and forward it on when it lands. If you're clearing a property you're selling in EX4 or EX5, that paperwork is the thing that proves the contents were handled properly.
A few items sit outside an ordinary load. Sofas, armchairs and anything else upholstered fall under the POPs rules, so the foam has to be kept separate and destroyed through its own controlled route. Fridges and freezers are degassed separately. Mattresses go on their own — some of these houses give up three or four across the bedrooms. And tins of paint, gas cylinders, solvents, asbestos sheeting off an old garage roof — we can't put those on a general load and won't pretend otherwise, though we'll tell you where in Devon they can go. If it's a part-load rather than a whole house, that's house rubbish removal and it's booked the same way.
Getting a figure for house clearance in Exeter
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs through the form on this page, and you'll get a figure back. That's the whole of it. Photographs of every room, the loft hatch, the garage and the shed tell us more in two minutes than a description does in twenty, and nobody turns up to sell you anything on your doorstep. If the team leader walks round on the morning and finds something nobody mentioned, you hear about it there and then rather than reading it on the invoice afterwards.
Exeter and the rest of the EX area
We work across the whole EX postcode area. In the city that's EX1 for Heavitree and Whipton, and EX2 for St Thomas, Alphington, Countess Wear and Wonford. EX4 covers Exwick, Pennsylvania and St Davids, with the EX5 villages either side — Pinhoe, Broadclyst, Woodbury. Topsham sits down on the estuary in EX3, and Exminster, Ide and Starcross in EX6. Beyond the city we're regularly in Dawlish, Crediton and Cullompton, east to Ottery St Mary and Honiton, and right up to Barnstaple and Ilfracombe in EX31 and EX34.
The nearer towns have their own pages: house clearance in Exmouth down the far side of the estuary, house clearance in Teignmouth along the coast, and house clearance in Newton Abbot inland from it. All three are comfortably a same-day run from an Exeter job.
Waste from Exeter properties goes through the routes Exeter City Council and Devon County Council operate; the villages fall under East Devon or Mid Devon — Broadclyst and Woodbury are East Devon, Crediton and Cullompton Mid Devon. Teams come down by road, so the station matters less than it does in a city. If you're travelling in to meet us, Exeter St Davids is the one for the mainline, Exeter Central puts you in the middle of town, and there are small stops at St Thomas and Polsloe Bridge.
Setting a date
Ring or email with the postcode, roughly how many bedrooms, whether there's a loft, garage or shed in it, and what's staying — carpets, curtains, white goods, all of that. Photographs help more than descriptions. We'll come back with a date and a figure, and you can pay by card, cheque or bank transfer after the work is done. Solicitors and executors are invoiced directly where probate is dealing with the estate.
Common questions about house clearance in Exeter
Can you invoice a solicitor or executor rather than a family member?
Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate direct, and payment can come out of the estate — that is how most probate house clearance Exeter side of the county is arranged. There's no deposit and nothing is asked for up front; the invoice follows the work.
How do I get a price?
Ring 0800 046 5555 or send photographs through the form on this page and we'll give you a figure. We don't quote blind off a description, and we don't send a salesman to your door.
Do I need to be there on the day?
No. Plenty of our Exeter clearances are run entirely from another county — a key from an agent, a solicitor or a neighbour is enough. What we do need in writing is what's staying, so nothing goes on the van that shouldn't.
Do you clear garages, lofts and sheds as well as the house?
Yes, and they're worth mentioning when you first call. Garage and loft clearance in Exeter often adds as much again to a job as the rooms do, particularly in the older terraces where the loft has been used as storage for decades.
What won't you take away?
Paint, solvents, gas cylinders, asbestos and anything else classed as hazardous can't go on a general load. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture we do take, but they're handled under their own rules rather than mixed in.
How long does a house clearance in Exeter take?
Most three-bed houses are a single day, with the loads going out as they're filled. Heavily filled properties, or ones with a full loft and garage on top, run to two. We start at 9am unless something else has been agreed.
