Three loads came out of one house in DD2, over on the Lochee and Charleston side of the city, and the little under-counter fridge travelled on its own because a fridge always has to. The person arranging it lived a few streets away, in the same postcode district, so it ran easily — keys handed over in the morning, a walk round with the team leader before a single thing was lifted, photographs taken at the start and again when the rooms were bare. Nothing was asked of them beforehand except the keys and half an hour of their time.
That is roughly the shape of most of our house clearance work in Dundee, and it has been for years now. A house that has been lived in a long time, a relative or an executor with a set of keys, and three of us with a Luton van from nine in the morning until it is done. We have been clearing houses since 2007, and Tayside has been on the run for a long stretch of that.
The contents of a house like that are fairly predictable and never quite the same twice. A velour three-piece suite, front room. A wing-back armchair nobody sat in. A bureau with sixty years of paperwork in the pigeonholes, a bamboo magazine rack, a pouffe, a room divider that had to be unbolted, a drop-leaf table with both leaves still down. Boxes of records out of a back bedroom — the sort of singles chart that was on the radio around 1970. None of that gets boxed up by you beforehand, by the way. The team empties the cupboards, the wardrobes and the drawers as they go, lifts carpets and underlay if you want them lifted, and sweeps through the rooms at the end.
Clearing a Dundee house when you live two hundred miles away
A fair share of the calls we get about house clearance in Dundee do not come from Dundee. One clearance in DD2, a semi on the Charleston streets, was instructed by someone living up in Sutherland, the far side of Inverness. They were never going to drive down for it. So the keys were collected locally, the team worked through the house, an upright fridge freezer and a mattress came out along with everything else, and the photographs went back north by email the same evening. The reply that came back was short and stuck in my head for how ordinary it was: "Thankyou for your e-mail. Please could you send me the link so that I can pay your invoice by card."
That is the whole of it, and it is how a lot of these go. You do not have to be in the city. A neighbour, a letting agent or an estate agent holding the keys is fine. If there is something of sentimental value still in the house — a photograph album, a christening cup, a box of letters — say so on the phone and it gets set aside rather than loaded, and posted on to you.
If you want a figure before any of that, ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of the rooms through the form on this page, and you will get one back for the property in front of you.
The kinds of house clearance people ask us for in Dundee
Probate house clearance in Dundee
This is the bulk of it. In Scotland the grant is called confirmation rather than probate, and the sheriff court issues it, but almost everybody who rings us calls the job a probate house clearance, so that is what we will call it too. Probate work runs to its own clock: the house sits, sometimes for months, and then everything has to happen at once because a buyer has appeared or the estate agent wants photographs of empty rooms.
We invoice the solicitor, the attorney or the executors of the estate directly, and payment can come out of the estate rather than out of anybody's own pocket. There is no deposit and nothing is asked for up front — the work is done first. If you are an executor at a distance, that arrangement is common enough on probate clearances up here that nobody at a Dundee solicitor's office will blink at it. Our probate house clearance page covers how the paperwork side works in more detail, including waste transfer notes where a solicitor wants them for the file.
Flat clearance in DD1 and DD4
A flat clearance is a different animal from a house. The city centre and waterfront flats in DD1, the tenement flats off the Hilltown and the four-in-a-block streets round Stobswell and Craigie in DD4 — the work inside is quick, and the stair is what costs you the morning. Sheltered housing and retirement flats we do a lot of, and those usually come with a warden's timetable to fit round and a lift that is too small for a wardrobe.
End of tenancy clearance in Dundee
Landlords and letting agents ring us for end of tenancy work, usually with a gap of days rather than weeks. A tenant has gone and left a flat part-furnished, or a student let in the West End has been emptied of people but not of furniture. We clear it, sweep through, and it can be handed on for cleaning or re-letting the same week. Straightforward rubbish removal without the full clearance is a job in itself as well — see house rubbish removal if that is all it needs.
Hoarder house clearance in Dundee
Heavily cluttered and hoarder properties are ordinary work to us. Nobody on the team comments, nobody makes a face in the hall. What changes is the planning: more loads, sometimes more days, protective kit as standard, and a proper walk-through before anything moves so we know what is under the piles. Where a property has been standing empty and there are signs of vermin, the team goes in equipped for that rather than turning up and improvising. Hoarder house clearance has more on how those jobs are run.
Garage and loft clearance in Dundee
Garage and loft clearance is the part people forget when they are describing a property over the phone. The house gets emptied, then somebody opens the garage door for the first time in years and there is a workbench, four tyres, tins of paint and a lawnmower behind it. Tell us about the garage and the loft when you book. Paint tins, gas canisters, oils and similar cannot ride in a normal load and are dealt with separately, if at all — that is not us being awkward, it is what a licensed carrier is allowed to move.
What we cover, and where the vans go
Our own postcode districts here are DD1 to DD5, and they split up neatly. DD1 is the city centre and the waterfront, the streets behind the station and the flats above the shops. DD2 runs west and south-west — Lochee, Charleston, Menzieshill, Ninewells and out to Invergowrie. DD3 is the north side: Hilltown, Ardler, Kirkton, St Mary's and Downfield. DD4 takes in Stobswell, Baxter Park, Craigie, Mid Craigie, Douglas and Whitfield. DD5 is the coast strip — Broughty Ferry, Barnhill and Monifieth.
Dundee City Council covers the city end of that. Monifieth, out at the far end of DD5, is Angus Council, and their tip and permit rules differ slightly, which occasionally matters on the day. The vans carry on up the coast beyond that: we do house clearance in Arbroath, house clearance in Forfar inland, and house clearance in Montrose at the top of the Angus run. Each of those has its own page with its own jobs on it.
Dundee railway station sits right by the waterfront under the V&A. There are stops at Broughty Ferry, Carnoustie and Arbroath on the same Aberdeen line — useful to know if you are coming up from Edinburgh or Glasgow for the day to let us in and going home again on the last train. Plenty of people do exactly that.
Access, stairs and the tenement problem
Dundee stone tenements are handsome and they are a pig to clear. Shared close, no lift, a turn in the stair that a three-seater sofa was never designed to come back down, and a bin-lane at the rear that a Luton van cannot always get into. The team measures the awkward pieces before carrying them, and a wardrobe or a divan base will often come apart on the landing rather than be forced. Out in the four-in-a-block streets and the semis at Downfield and Barnhill it is usually easier — driveway, side gate, done. Where parking is genuinely tight, tell us when you book and we will sort the van out at our end.
Costs, and what happens to the contents
On cost the answer is short. Ring 0800 046 5555 with the address, the postcode district and a rough idea of the property. Three-bed semi, loft full, garage you cannot open — or send photographs of the rooms through the form on this page, and you will get a proper figure for that property. Not a range, and not a number invented off the back of a postcode.
Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture are handled separately from the general load because the regulations require it. Upholstered items fall under the persistent organic pollutants rules. They cannot be tipped or recycled alongside everything else, so they travel on their own route to incineration; fridges and freezers are hazardous waste and go to a site licensed to degas them.
Furniture and household goods with plenty of use left in them are offered on to charity shops and reuse schemes locally wherever they are fit to sell. What is left is graded and taken to licensed recycling and transfer stations, and waste transfer notes can be issued for any load if you or a solicitor need the paper trail. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and we are fully insured.
House clearance in Dundee — common questions
Can you invoice a solicitor or the executors? Yes. On probate work we invoice the solicitor, the attorney or the executors of the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit and nothing is due before the work is carried out.
How much will my house clearance in Dundee cost? Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 or send photographs of the rooms through the form on this page and you will get a figure for your property. The estimate is free and there is nothing to sign.
Do I need to be there, or empty anything first? Neither. The team clears cupboards, wardrobes and drawers themselves. If you cannot be there, keys can come from a neighbour, an estate agent or a letting agent, and photographs of the emptied rooms are emailed to you the same day.
How much notice do you need? Most clearances in Dundee are booked a working day or two ahead and finished inside a single day. Heavily cluttered and hoarder properties can run to a second day, and you will be told that before we start, not halfway through.
Do you clear flats in tenements with no lift? Yes — a flat clearance up a shared close is routine here. Large pieces are measured and, where necessary, taken apart on the landing rather than forced round the turn in the stair.
Do you cover Broughty Ferry, Monifieth and the Angus towns? Broughty Ferry, Barnhill and Monifieth are all DD5 and are day-to-day work for us, and the vans run on up to Arbroath, Forfar and Montrose. If you are unsure whether your address falls inside the DD1 to DD5 area, give the office the first half of the postcode and we will tell you straight away.
