Edgware sits at the top of the Northern line, and for us house clearance in Edgware means HA8. One postal district, old Middlesex, that spills across three London boroughs and takes in Burnt Oak, Queensbury and Canons Park as well as the town itself. We have been clearing houses since 2007, and a fair number of those days have been spent up here. What follows is two jobs we actually did, and then the practical stuff people ring the office about. Access, what can and cannot go in the van, and who gets the invoice when there is an estate involved.
The last full day of house clearance we did in HA8 was the whole of a house, every room of it, with a clean through the three bedrooms once the rooms were empty. It ran to a full load and then a second load the same day, which is how a house that size usually goes. You fill the tipper, it goes off to be tipped and sorted. The crew come back for the rest rather than leave you with half a house done and a promise about Tuesday. A mattress travelled on its own, as mattresses have to. So did a fridge-freezer.
The person arranging it wasn't local — they were over in Romford, the far side of London, so the whole thing was settled by email and telephone rather than face to face. Afterwards came a message that will be familiar to anyone who has ever paid a tradesman and then sat there wondering: "I have just paid by credit card, could you let me know when you have received the payment please." We wrote back the same morning to say it had come through. Small thing. But somebody dealing with a property twenty miles from where they live, who can't walk round and see for themselves, is owed a straight answer quickly. That goes for the confirmation as much as for the work itself.
The blocks, the lifts and the bays
Half our work in this corner of north London is flats, and flats are mostly about access. A lift car full of loose furniture picks up scratches fast, and it is the leaseholder who hears about it afterwards, not us. So we line the car, carry loads rather than sling them, and sweep the lift and the communal landings through at the end so the neighbours can't tell we were there. Where the bays outside are permit-only, the van gets registered with the council for the day. On the residential roads off the A5 there is usually a space to be had if you turn up early enough, and we do turn up early. Most clearances start at nine and finish the same day. That is the aim, anyway, and on a one or two-load job it usually holds.
Flat clearance in HA8
A flat clearance is a different day from a house, and it is worth saying so before anybody books one. On a house you can stage everything in the hall and load in a straight line. In a block you are working to a lift, a bin store, a fire door that shuts on your fingers, and a set of neighbours who have to get past. Sofas down a stairwell are not a one-man job, so a flat clearance on an upper floor goes out with two men on the crew as a matter of course. If there is a concierge or a managing agent who wants notice, tell us when you book and we will give them the notice. It is a five-minute phone call that saves an hour of standing about on the day.
Garage and loft clearance in Edgware
Much of Edgware went up between the wars, after the Northern line arrived, and the housing shows it. Bay-fronted semis, a side alley down to a detached garage, a loft hatch on the landing. Garage and loft clearance in Edgware is very often the real job, with the house itself the easy part. The loft is where the suitcases, the cot, the boxes of paperwork and the decorating gear all ended up, and the garage door frequently has not been opened in a decade. We bring a ladder. If the loft is boarded, say so; if it isn't, we work off the joists and pass down rather than throw. Where a house has a loft, a garage and a garden that has been left a while, the work can run into a second day. We would far rather tell you that at the quoting stage than leave you standing in an empty hall at five o'clock wondering.
What actually leaves the property
We take everything, and we mean the cupboards too. Nobody needs to bag or box anything up first — the team empties wardrobes, drawers and kitchen units, lifts carpet and underlay if that is wanted, and brushes through at the end. Then it gets sorted. Furniture that is still sound is offered on to reuse schemes before anything else happens to it, and the same goes for crockery, tools, books and bedding in decent condition.
Whatever can be pulled out as metal, wood or clean cardboard is separated at the yard. The remainder is weighed in at a permitted transfer station, and a waste transfer note comes back with it. We have been asked for those notes by clients before now, and we can produce them. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, held with the Environment Agency, and it is worth checking that number against anyone who quotes you, not just us. A cheap load that ends up in a lane somewhere is traced back to the householder, not to the man with the van.
A few categories travel separately, and that is the law rather than our preference. Fridges and freezers are classed as hazardous waste and have to be degassed at a facility set up for it. Mattresses can't go in with the general load. Sofas, armchairs and anything else with foam padding count as POPs waste. Persistent organic pollutants — so the padding goes for incineration and cannot be mixed in with the rest of the van. Televisions and monitors, tins of paint, fire extinguishers, gas canisters and car tyres each go their own route for the same reason: none of them can be tipped as ordinary household waste. Ask us on the phone if you are not sure what is in the garage. It is easier to plan a load around a stack of paint tins than to discover them at four in the afternoon.
The one that needed a second load
The other Edgware job worth setting out was in HA8 at the start of 2020, and it was a full house clearance from top to bottom with a clean afterwards. Two mattresses came out of it, and again it took a load and then a second load the same day. It was probate work, arranged by the executor of the estate, who was dealing with the whole thing from out in Hertfordshire with a solicitor's office handling the legal side. The executor wrote to us plainly about how it would be settled: "The excutors of his estate have appointed a solicitor to deal with probate. Your invoice will be passed to them as a debt against the estate and will be paid when probate has been granted."
That is exactly the arrangement we work with all the time, and it is worth saying out loud, because people worry about it. Probate takes as long as it takes. The house often has to be emptied well before the grant comes through, because there is a sale on, or a tenancy to end, or simply nobody left to keep an eye on the place. So the invoice goes to the solicitor or to the executor, it sits as a debt against the estate, and it is settled when the estate is in a position to settle it. Nobody has to fund a probate house clearance out of their own pocket while they wait.
Executors, solicitors and clearing a house from a distance
A good share of the house clearance work we do in Edgware is arranged by somebody who does not live in Edgware, and often not in London at all. Both of the jobs above were like that — one run from Romford, one from Hertfordshire. It works fine. Keys get collected from a neighbour, an agent or a solicitor's office. Photographs of the rooms go over by email beforehand so there are no surprises; photographs of the empty rooms go back afterwards so you can see it is done. Anything of sentimental value that turns up is set aside rather than loaded, and posted on if you would rather not make the trip. If you want paperwork, jewellery, medals or loose cash looked out for, say so at the booking stage and the team will put it to one side.
Probate house clearance in Edgware is the biggest single strand of it, and executors get the same treatment whether they are next door or in another country. We invoice the solicitor, the trustee or the executor direct, and we wait. Hoarded properties are the other strand people hesitate to ring about. Nobody in the crew comments, nobody photographs anything beyond the standard before-and-after shots for the file, and nobody discusses the job outside the van. Properties get into that state for all sorts of reasons and it is none of our business why. End of tenancy work, single items, a garage on its own — all of that we will do as readily as a whole house.
The districts we work
Edgware station is where most people picture the place, at the end of the Northern line, though Burnt Oak, Canons Park and Mill Hill Broadway are all near enough to matter when the traffic on the A5 is doing what it usually does. HA8 is the home district on this page, and it is not a tidy administrative shape: the town is split between Barnet and Harrow, and Queensbury at the western end runs into Brent.
Beyond it we work the whole of the London Borough of Barnet and the edges around it. N2 in East Finchley, N3 in Finchley Central, N10 up in Muswell Hill, N12 in North Finchley, N14 towards Southgate, N20 in Whetstone and Totteridge, NW4 in Hendon, NW9 across Colindale and Kingsbury, NW11 in Golders Green, NW2 through Cricklewood and Neasden, and NW3 down into Hampstead. North of that we cover EN4 in East Barnet and Cockfosters, and EN5 in Barnet and New Barnet.
All of it is Greater London, all of it is within an easy run for the van, and none of it needs a special trip to be looked at.
The neighbouring pages carry the same crews and the same licence. There is house clearance in Barnet for the borough town to the north-east, house clearance in Harrow for everything the other side of the boundary to the west, house clearance in Stanmore for the smaller stretch immediately north-west of us. house clearance in Childs Hill down towards Golders Green. If your property sits on the boundary and you are not sure which page it belongs to, it does not matter — ring the office and give us the postcode.
Common questions about house clearance in Edgware
Do you cover the whole of HA8? Yes — Edgware itself, Burnt Oak, Queensbury and Canons Park, whichever of the three boroughs the address happens to fall in. The quote is free and there is no obligation attached to it.
Can you invoice a solicitor for a probate house clearance? Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the trustee or the executor direct, and the invoice can be settled from the estate once probate has been granted. Say at the booking stage who is handling it and we will address the paperwork accordingly.
Do we need to empty the cupboards first? No. Leave the house exactly as it stands. The crew empty wardrobes, drawers, lofts and kitchen units, and will lift carpet and underlay if you want that doing.
What can't go in the van with everything else? Fridges and freezers, mattresses, upholstered furniture containing POPs, televisions and monitors, paint, gas canisters, fire extinguishers and tyres. They all leave the property, they just travel and are processed separately because the regulations require it.
Can you do a flat clearance where there is no parking outside? Usually, yes. Tell us at the booking stage and the van gets registered for the permit bay, or we plan the carry from wherever we can legally stop. It is the sort of thing best sorted before the day rather than on it.
How do I get a quote? Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode and the rough size of the property, or send a handful of photographs of the rooms as they stand through the form on this page. Mess and all — it makes no difference to us — and you will have an answer back the same working day.
Whatever the job is, house clearance in Edgware is booked the same way. A phone call to 0800 046 5555, or photographs through the form on this page, and a proper answer before anybody sets out.
