House clearance in Kingsbridge is the bottom end of our TQ round: TQ7, the town at the head of the estuary, the villages strung along both sides of the water, and the lanes that join them up. South Hams District Council ground, Devon, South West. We have been clearing houses since 2007 and there is a van of ours somewhere in the TQ postcodes most weeks of the year. What follows is one real clearance told properly, and then the practical end of it — access and parking, what we cannot legally carry, where the contents actually end up, and how probate work is run when nobody lives nearby.
A two-bedroom house clearance, cleared to the floorboards
April 2022. Two-storey house, one lounge, two bedrooms, no loft, no garage, no garden shed. That sounds like a half-day and often isn't, because a house with nowhere to stash things has had everything stashed in the rooms instead. Nothing was to be kept back at all. And every floor covering was to come up. The customer set that out plainly before a date was even agreed: "No items to be left, All floor coverings to b e cleared i.e. carpets and vinyl."
Worth pausing on that one, because it comes up constantly and the answer isn't obvious. We can take up carpets — that is part of the day, underlay and gripper rods with them. We do not take up vinyl flooring. It's stuck down, it comes away in shreds, and it belongs to a flooring contractor rather than a clearance team. If the vinyl has already been lifted before we arrive, it goes on the van with everything else and there is no trouble about it whatsoever. So that is what we told the customer, in those words, before anything was booked — carpets yes, vinyl only if it's already up. Nobody wants that conversation at nine in the morning with a crew standing in the hall.
Getting a date took a couple of goes, and it's honest to say it was us who caused it: the week the customer first asked for was already full. We offered the Monday. That didn't suit. Back came the reply: "I'm afraid Monday 25th April is not suitable for me. Tuesday 26th, Thursday 28th and Friday 29th are all ok. Please see what you can do and let me know." We shuffled the following week and gave the Tuesday, with the team to meet at the property for ten. The confirmation that came back was the sort of thing you only get from someone who has thought about the day properly: "Tuesday 26/04/2022 is brilliant. I shall be there for 10am and have the house well ventilated."
Ventilation is something we ask for and most people never think of. Doors and windows open, right through the clearance. A house shut up for months smells of itself, and once carpet starts coming up there is dust off the underlay that has been sitting there since it was laid. Open the place up an hour before and the difference is real. The customer was there on the day for access and gave instructions as the rooms emptied, which is the easiest way to work — questions get answered as they arise instead of by text message three days later. No hazardous material anywhere in the property, which was declared up front.
That job is a fair picture of how we work anywhere, Kingsbridge included. We don't need anything boxed or bagged before we arrive. Cupboards, wardrobes, drawers, the shelf above the stairs, the pile behind the shed door — the team empties all of it. If you want boxes checked before they go on the van, say so when you book and the day gets planned around it.
The order of a house clearance day in Kingsbridge
The team leader walks the whole property first, top to bottom, including the loft hatch and anything with a padlock on it. Then the van goes as close as it is going to get, and the work runs from the far end back towards the door — the room furthest from the van first, so nothing has to be carried back through space that's already clear. Soft furnishings and mattresses are bagged as they come out rather than after. Small heavy things go in first at the bulkhead, big light things last.
A two- or three-bedroom house is usually a day. A house that has had forty years put into it can be two, and we would rather tell you that at the quote stage than at four in the afternoon. If we say one day and it turns into two, the second day is arranged there and then and the property is left secure overnight.
Getting to Kingsbridge, and where the van goes
Kingsbridge has no railway. It hasn't had one since the sixties, and the old line up the valley is long gone, so the nearest usable station is Totnes on the Great Western main line, about twelve miles north up the A381 — Ivybridge is the other option if you're coming from the Plymouth side. Everyone else drives. That matters to us mainly because of what the roads do to a loaded van: the A381 through Halwell and Harbertonford is fine, the A379 east towards Frogmore, Chillington and Slapton is narrow in places, the lanes off it down to the water are worse, and anything below West Alvington narrows fast.
In the town itself it is the terraces climbing off the town centre that are awkward. Steep, narrow, cars both sides, and a van that needs to sit close enough to walk a three-piece suite out without carrying it fifty yards. Where the parking is genuinely tight we work it out with you beforehand — an early start before the shoppers arrive usually solves it. The Quay side and the newer estates towards Churchstow are straightforward. Cottages in Malborough, Thurlestone or Aveton Gifford tend to mean low doorways, tight turns on the stairs and a loft hatch you have to be slim to get through. We plan for that rather than discovering it at nine in the morning.
The area we cover around Kingsbridge
Modbury, Ugborough, Ermington, Yealmpton sits just over the line in PL21, and so do the villages down towards Start Point and East Prawle. Salcombe is TQ8, Dartmouth TQ6, with Totnes and South Brent beyond them — all of them South Hams District Council, all of them Devon, all regular ground for us. If your property sits somewhere between two of those, ring and ask; the answer is usually straightforward.
The bigger town north of here has its own page: house clearance in Totnes covers the villages up the river. Over the hill on the Torbay side we work the same round, and house clearance in Torquay is written up separately, as is the smaller run down the far side of the harbour — house clearance in Brixham. Same crews, same vans, different lanes.
Where everything actually ends up
Furniture and household goods that still work get offered on locally before anything else happens to them — a reuse project or a charity shop will take a sound dining set or a decent sofa with its fire label intact, and that keeps it off a lorry to a transfer station. What's left is sorted on the van by material and taken to a permitted site, weighed in, and recorded. Every load is documented. We hold upper-tier waste carrier registration CBDU419679, and we're insured; if you want the registration number checked against the public register before we turn up, do it, it takes a minute.
Two categories can't just go on the load with everything else. Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating fall under the POP rules — persistent organic pollutants, the flame retardants in the foam — and by law that material has to be kept separate and incinerated rather than recycled, so it travels separately from the rest of the load. Fridges and freezers are sealed units with gas in them; they can't ride in the back with the wardrobes and the carpet offcuts either, and go instead to a site set up to degas them.
Paint tins, paraffin and the rest
Half-used paint tins and a can of paraffin in the shed come up more often than you would think, and they are not the same problem. Paint we can generally sort. Paraffin needs a separate conversation, because fuel and solvents aren't something an ordinary household load can legally carry. Same goes for gas cylinders, old motor oil, garden chemicals, asbestos sheeting off a lean-to roof. Tell us what's in the shed when you book and we'll say plainly what comes with us and what needs a different route — usually a booked slot at a South Hams recycling centre or a specialist collection.
What a house clearance in Kingsbridge costs, and how to find out
There is one answer to this and it isn't printed on a page. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs of each room through the form on this page and tell us roughly what's staying, and you'll get a figure back. The quote is free and it commits you to nothing.
Photographs miss things — lofts, garages, the cupboard nobody opened — so the team leader walks the property on arrival and tells you there and then if anything has moved, before a single item is lifted. Nothing gets loaded on a changed figure you haven't agreed to.
Probate house clearance in Kingsbridge, executors and keys
A good share of what we do in the South Hams is an estate. Probate house clearance is its own kind of job: the executor is often two counties away, the sale is already agreed, and the house has to be empty by a date that somebody else set. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. Payment can come out of the estate rather than out of your own pocket to be claimed back later, and there is no deposit — the invoice follows the work, not the other way round.
If nobody local can be at the property we work off keys: posted to us by special delivery, or collected from and returned to the agent handling the sale. Meter readings on the day if you ask, photographs of the empty rooms sent through when we finish, so an executor at a distance isn't driving down the A379 twice. If probate hasn't been granted yet and you only want the house emptied of perishables and the garden made safe for now, that's a smaller job and we'll do it as one. More on how we handle probate house clearance generally.
Garage and loft clearance, and houses that have got out of hand
Garage and loft clearance is a job in its own right down here, and often the only part left once the family have been through the rooms. A hoarder house clearance we take on the same way, without comment. Rooms filled to the ceiling, a hallway you can only walk sideways down, a garage that hasn't opened in years. We do hoarder house clearance regularly across TQ7 and there's no lecture attached. If there is cash, jewellery or paperwork that might be in among it, tell us and the team keeps an eye out for it as they work — that turns up more often than you'd think. Ventilation, again, matters more on these than on anything else, and we'll ask for the windows open. See hoarder house clearance for how those days are run.
Questions we get asked about house clearance in Kingsbridge
Can you invoice the solicitor, or be paid from the estate? Yes. For probate work we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit and the invoice comes after the work is finished.
Do we need to sort or pack anything before you come? No. Leave it exactly as it is. If certain items are to stay — anything at all, from a dining table to the contents of one drawer — put a note on them or tell the team leader at the walk-round.
Can you take up carpets? Carpets yes, including underlay and gripper rods. Vinyl flooring no, because it's glued down and lifting it is a flooring job. If the vinyl has already been taken up, we'll take it away with the rest.
How much notice do you need for a clearance in Kingsbridge? Usually a few days, sometimes more in the summer. If the week you want is full we'll say so and offer what we have — better than promising a date we can't keep.
Do you cover the villages, or only the town? The villages too. Malborough, Thurlestone, Aveton Gifford, Churchstow, West Alvington, Frogmore, Chillington, Slapton, and the lanes down towards Start Point and East Prawle are all TQ7 and all normal ground for us.
What can't go on the van? Paraffin and other fuels, gas cylinders, motor oil, garden chemicals, asbestos. Fridges, freezers and upholstered furniture do travel with us, but they are handled separately because the law requires it.
To arrange a house clearance in Kingsbridge or anywhere across TQ7, send a few photographs of each room through the form on this page and tell us what's staying, or ring 0800 046 5555 and talk it through. We'll come back with a figure and a date.
