A little while back a solicitor handling an estate asked us to clear a house and its shed over at Ivybridge, in PL21, part of the same South Hams patch we cover from Totnes. That one ran to two days. On the first day the team took the house and the shed, sorted out the regulated recycling and ran a full load off the site. On the second we finished the rooms, took another load, and dealt with a mattress on its own separate route. Once every room was empty we cleaned through — up to three bedrooms' worth — so the property could go on the market bare and tidy. The person dealing with it wrote back plainly after the invoice landed: "I confirm that I will arrange for settlement as soon as I am in funds." Probate moves at its own pace, and we're well used to waiting on it.
That job is a fair picture of most house clearance in Totnes and the villages around it. An executor at a distance, a house that has to be emptied and left clean, and no rush to pay until the estate is in funds. Abacus has been doing this work since 2007, and the South Hams is one of our steadier corners.
Probate house clearance in Totnes and the South Hams
A good share of the calls we get in Totnes are probate. Someone has died, the house needs emptying before it sells, and the person sorting it is often a son or daughter living in another county — sometimes another country — trying to arrange it all by email and photographs. We're set up for exactly that. You don't need to be at the property while we work; a neighbour, an agent or a key safe gets us in, and we send pictures through when we're done.
Money is the part people worry about, so we keep it simple. There's no deposit. On an estate we invoice the solicitor or the executor directly, and the bill can be settled from the estate once probate is granted. Which is why the customer above could tell us they'd pay when they were in funds, and that was fine. The quote itself is free and commits you to nothing. Ring us on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send photos through the form on this page and we'll come back with a figure.
The rural clearances — barns, sheds and outbuildings
Not every job here is a town house. We've cleared a barn conversion out towards Ermington, again in PL21, and plenty of rural properties come with more than four walls. A shed you've not opened in years, a garage stacked to the door, a lean-to full of pots and old tools. The Ivybridge estate had a shed to empty alongside the house, and that's normal for the South Hams. Out here a "two-bed cottage" clearance often doubles once you count the outbuildings, so when you send photos, send the sheds and the loft too. It stops the estimate moving on the day.
Garage and loft clearance in Totnes
Half the jobs that start as a house clearance in Totnes turn into a garage and loft job as well, and it's worth saying so at the quoting stage rather than on the morning. The garage is where the mower lives, along with the paint tins, the bike nobody rides and thirty years of timber offcuts. The loft is boxes, an old water tank, suitcases, a cot, and the decorations nobody has been up for since the house went quiet. We'll do garage and loft clearance on its own too, without touching the rest of the house. People here often empty a loft ahead of a survey, or clear a garage so a car can finally go in it. Lofts in the older Totnes houses tend to be boarded in patches and reached by a hatch ladder. We bring our own boards and pass everything down hand to hand rather than risk a foot through a bedroom ceiling.
We also do the smaller, item-led jobs — a couple of under-counter fridge-freezers and a mattress off a single property, that kind of thing. Fridges and freezers have to go through a proper degassing route, and a mattress can't just be tipped, so both come off as separate lines regardless of how small the load is.
Getting a van into Totnes
Anyone who's driven it knows Totnes is steep and narrow. Fore Street and the High Street climb from the river up to the castle, the pavements are tight, and a good many of the old houses have no off-street parking at all. We plan the access before we come. If there's nowhere to pull up we'll look at the nearest loading spot and carry. Where a stretch of road needs a bay held for the day we'll tell you in advance so it can be arranged with South Hams District Council. Flats above the shops mean stairs and no lift, which is fine — it just changes how we crew the job.
Totnes station sits down by the Dart on the main Great Western line between London Paddington and Plymouth, and the South Devon Railway heritage line runs up the valley from Littlehempston. Handy to know if family are coming in to meet us, less handy for the town centre traffic. That Is why we like an early start and a clear idea of where the van goes before the team leaves the yard.
Areas and postcodes we cover from Totnes
The Totnes branch works right across the South Hams and the western edge of it too. That takes in TQ10 up at South Brent, TQ6 down to Dartmouth, TQ7 around Kingsbridge, TQ8 out to Salcombe, and over west into PL21 at Ivybridge and PL8 towards Yealmpton and Newton Ferrers. All of it is Devon, in the South West, under South Hams District Council with Devon County Council behind it.
We're regularly out in Dartmouth, Kingsbridge, Salcombe and South Brent, and in the villages between — Dartington, Berry Pomeroy, Harberton, Ashprington, Staverton. If you're just outside one of those postcodes, ask anyway; the branch reaches further than the town boundary and we'd rather tell you yes or no straight than have you guess.
Past the edge of our own districts the neighbouring towns have pages of their own, so start there if that's where the property is. house clearance in Torquay over the hill to the east, house clearance in Kingsbridge down at the head of the estuary, and house clearance in Brixham round on the far side of the bay. If the house sits somewhere between one of those and Totnes, ring either way and we'll work out which van takes it.
What comes out, and where it goes
We clear the lot — furniture, white goods, carpets, the contents of lofts, sheds and garages, and the small stuff nobody wants to face, right down to the last drawer. What matters afterwards is where it all ends up.
Anything still fit to be used we keep out of the tip. Usable furniture, working appliances and household bits get run round to charity shops and reuse projects across the South Hams, so they go on to somebody rather than to landfill. What's genuinely finished is taken to a licensed facility, and every load is logged with the transfer note to prove where it went — worth asking for on a probate job, as the paperwork sometimes matters to the estate.
Two rules shape the sorting. Sofas, armchairs and mattresses now fall under the persistent organic pollutant regulations, so their foam and covers must go down a separate, tracked disposal route instead of being tipped in with general waste. That's law since 2023, not a choice of ours. And a short list of things can't ride in an ordinary clearance load at all: paint tins, gas canisters, solvents and the like. We'll set those aside on the day and point you to the Devon County Council household waste site for them rather than take them illegally.
We're a licensed waste carrier, registration CBDU419679, and fully insured, which is the difference between a clearance and fly-tipping with your name on the paperwork.
Hoarded and heavily filled houses
Some houses are a lot. Rooms you can't walk into, a hallway you turn sideways for, thirty years of keeping everything. We handle those the same as any other clearance — no lecture, no fuss, and we've seen far worse than whatever's behind your door. On a full house we go carefully rather than fast, because among the papers and boxes there's often something that shouldn't leave: cash tucked in a book, jewellery, documents, photographs. Anything like that gets put aside for the family, not skipped.
How the day runs
We arrive at nine and aim to have the property cleared the same day where the size allows. Bigger houses, or a house plus outbuildings like the Ivybridge one, run to two days, and we'll say so up front so you're not left wondering at four o'clock. Send us photographs of every room, the loft and the sheds before you book, and the van turns up loaded for the right size of job with the hours already set — no standing about, no surprise second visit.
Common questions
Do I need to be there for a house clearance in Totnes? No. Plenty of our Totnes clearances are handled entirely by photo and phone for someone living away. We arrange access through a key safe, an agent or a neighbour, and send pictures once the property's empty.
Can you invoice the solicitor or executor? Yes. For probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the appointed representative directly, and the account can be settled from the estate once funds are available. No deposit is taken.
How is a quote worked out? By what you show us. Send photos of every room and any lofts, garages and sheds through the form on this page, or call and describe it, and we'll give you a free figure with no obligation.
Will you do a garage and loft clearance without the whole house? Yes, that's a common one in Totnes. A garage and loft on their own is a normal booking for us, whether it's ahead of a survey, before a move, or just to get the space back.
Do you take on a hoarder house clearance? We do, regularly, with no fuss made about the state of the place. We work through a full house carefully so anything valuable or personal is found and kept for the family.
Which areas around Totnes do you cover? Across the South Hams — Dartmouth, Kingsbridge, Salcombe and South Brent, and out to Ivybridge — spanning TQ6, TQ7, TQ8, TQ10, PL21 and PL8. If you're near the edge of that, just ask.
To arrange house clearance in Totnes or anywhere in the South Hams, send photographs through the form on this page or give us a call on 0800 046 5555, and we'll come back with a straight, no-obligation quote.
