House clearance in Peckham is rarely a straight run from a front door to a van. It is Victorian terraces cut into flats, half of them with a shared hallway barely wide enough for a wardrobe. A street outside that belongs to permit holders. We have been clearing houses and flats across these SE and SW districts since 2007. The days that go well are the ones where somebody told us about the stairs and the parking before we set off.
The piano weighed 197kg. That was the entire job on a July morning in 2024. An upright standing on the ground floor of a place in SE15, parked more or less against the exit door, with a move-out date that Friday and no room left to be clever about it. The owner photographed it and sent the picture in before ringing. Is the quickest route to an answer we have. Their written instruction to us was two lines and told us everything: "Piano to be collected from the ground floor. Located next to the exit door." Two of us, a caged tipper on the kerb, ten minutes of shuffling once the door was propped open.
An upright at that weight sits right at the top of what two people move without extra kit. The answer on the phone depended entirely on where it stood and what was between it and the pavement. We asked about parking restrictions for a caged tipper, expecting the usual bad news, and got the reply you almost never hear in this corner of south London: "No, there usually are places to park right in front of the house." Nunhead end of SE15, quieter street, and it turned out to be true on the day. Not every Peckham job is that kind.
A block in SW2, twice in one summer
The other one worth telling is not a house at all. In July 2020 we were booked by the managing agent for a block of flats in SW2, over towards Brixton. A full load of rubbish removal out of the communal side of the building, instructed by somebody who does not live there and was not going to be on site. In September the same block needed the same thing again. That is how managed blocks go: the bin store fills, the bulky stuff that nobody will admit to leaving piles up beside it. Twice a summer somebody has to clear it out.
What made that pair of visits memorable was the paperwork rather than the load. After the first one the property manager came back with a single instruction — "Please amend the billing details to be" — followed by the registered name of the freehold company, which was not the name of the block and not the name of the person who let us in. On managed property the party who books you, the party who owns the building and the party who pays are three different entities. Getting that wrong means the job is done and the file still is not closed. We reissued it as asked. It is the same habit that makes probate work run smoothly: ask early who the invoice belongs to, then send it there.
The kinds of clearance people ring us about in Peckham
Probate house clearance in Peckham
Most of our Peckham house clearance work is probate. A house that has been lived in for forty years, an executor who may be in another county or another country. A sale that cannot proceed until the place is empty. We can work entirely from photographs and one set of keys. Several Peckham probate clearances a year run without the executor ever standing in the hallway.
On probate jobs we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, whichever the file needs. Payment can come out of the estate once the grant is through. There is no deposit and nothing to pay up front: the invoice follows the work, not the booking. Tell us at the start who it should be addressed to and we will address it that way. More on how the day itself runs is on our probate house clearance page.
Flat clearance in SE15 and the districts around it
Flat clearance is its own animal. Third floor, no lift, a stairwell with a turn in it that a three-seater will not go round. A communal door that other residents need to keep using while we are carrying. We bring the number of people the stairs justify rather than the number the floor area suggests. Tell us the floor, whether there is a lift. Whether the stairwell has a bend, and the estimate you get for a flat clearance in SE15 or SE5 will be the one that still stands at four in the afternoon.
End of tenancy clearance in Peckham
Landlords and letting agents use us for end of tenancy clearance across Peckham, Nunhead and Camberwell. A tenant gone, a flat left half furnished, and a check-out inspection booked. Those jobs are usually a single day with a hard deadline attached. We would rather start early and be off the street by lunchtime than block a narrow terrace at school run time.
Hoarder house clearance in Peckham
Some properties are past the point where you would let a friend see them. A hoarder house clearance is a specific category of work, not a polite word for untidy: protective kit, respirators where they are needed, sealed waste, a different disposal route and a proper clean-down of the van afterwards. It takes days rather than a day, and the team are told what they are walking into so they arrive equipped instead of improvising. Nobody gets a lecture and nobody gets photographed for anyone else's benefit. If that is your situation, say so on the phone. It changes the number of days and the kit. It does not change whether we come. There is more detail on our hoarder house clearance page.
Garage and loft clearance in Peckham
Garage and loft clearance often gets booked as an afterthought and then turns out to be half the day. Lofts in these terraces are boarded badly if at all. A garage down a rear service alley may not have been opened since the person who filled it stopped driving. Same for gardens: on Peckham probate and end of tenancy work the inside gets dealt with by somebody. The outside quietly turns into a thicket over two summers.
Single items, piano removal and trade loads
Not everything in SE15 is a whole house. One wardrobe, one American fridge freezer, a piano off a ground floor — that is a booking too, and the piano removal page explains what we need to know before we send a crew. Builders, letting agents and managing agents use us for house rubbish removal the same way: one load, in and gone, invoiced properly so it goes through the books.
Where we go, and how we get there
Our Peckham work sits mostly in SE15 — Peckham itself, Peckham Rye and Nunhead — and the run out from there takes in SE5 for Camberwell, SE22 for East Dulwich, SE21 for Dulwich Village and West Dulwich, SE24 for Herne Hill and SE23 for Forest Hill and Honor Oak. Northwards we work SE17 in Walworth, SE1 around Borough and Bermondsey, SE16 in Rotherhithe and SE8 in Deptford. Further out we cover SE19 for Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood, SE26 in Sydenham and SE27 in West Norwood.
West of that we are regularly across the river side of the map: SE11 in Kennington, SW9 in Stockwell, SW2 for Brixton Hill and Tulse Hill, SW8 for Vauxhall and Nine Elms, SW4 in Clapham, SW12 in Balham, SW11 in Battersea and SW13 in Barnes. That is Southwark for Peckham itself, Lambeth for most of the SW list, Lewisham for Forest Hill and Deptford, and Wandsworth further west. Different boroughs, different rules on bay suspensions and different lead times, which is worth knowing before you fix a date. If you are on the borough boundary, see house clearance in Southwark, house clearance in Lambeth.
We come in by road, not by rail, but the stations are the landmarks everyone gives us: Peckham Rye, Queens Road Peckham, Nunhead, Honor Oak Park. If you tell us you are five minutes from Peckham Rye and the street is one-way with a school on it, that tells us more about the day than a floor plan does. Rye Lane on a Saturday is not somewhere to be reversing a tipper, so we work those addresses early.
How the day runs
We turn up at nine and normally clear the property that day. Notice of one or two working days is usually enough. If you have a date in mind we will hold it. Where the street is permit-only or the frontage is too tight for a caged tipper, a bay suspension or waiting dispensation has to be arranged with the borough in advance. Allow about a week for that, and tell us early, because it sets the timetable before anything else does. Carrying a house out of an SE15 terrace with the van forty metres up the road costs you the whole afternoon in walking time and costs the neighbours their patience.
There is no need to box or bag anything up. Take out what you are keeping, put it to one side, and the team clear everything else. Inside cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, carpets, underlay and gripper rods where they lift cleanly, and a sweep through at the end. Gripper rods laid over tiles we leave, because pulling them damages the floor underneath.
What cannot ride in with the general load
Fridges and freezers are hazardous waste: the gas circuit has to be degassed under the F-gas rules. They travel and are processed separately. Mattresses go their own way as well. Upholstered domestic seating — sofas, armchairs, office chairs — is treated as POP-containing furniture. Since 2023 it is kept out of the sorting stream entirely and sent for permitted incineration. Gas bottles and part-used tins of paint we will take. They leave our yard by a different route and have to be accounted for one by one. Tell us all of that exists when you book, not when the tailgate is down.
Licence, insurance and where it all ends up
We are registered with the Environment Agency as an upper-tier waste carrier, CBDU419679, and the cover is in place for the team and for your property. Check the number on the public register if you like, it takes a minute. Everything that leaves a Peckham address goes out on a transfer note. The tickets come back with the driver.
Furniture that is still solid, unopened kitchen stock, tools, books and decent white goods we would rather see going to a Southwark reuse project or a charity shop on Rye Lane than into a skip — most weeks something does. What cannot be reused is tipped at a permitted transfer station and split there into wood, metal, plastics, hardcore and residual. The weights recorded against our carrier number. That is the boring administrative half of a house clearance. It is the half that protects you if anyone ever asks where your late relative's belongings went.
Getting a figure for your own
Ring the office on 0800 046 5555, or send photographs through the form on this page. Photographs help far more than descriptions do — one picture of a piano standing next to a door answered more questions than the four emails around it. Give us the postcode district, the number of bedrooms, whether there is a loft, cellar, garden or garage still full. A note on sofas and appliances, and you will get a figure back over the phone or by email. The quote is free and commits you to nothing. If you would rather we walked the property first, we will do that too.
Peckham house clearance — common questions
How much notice do you need? Usually one or two working days. We start at nine and normally have the property cleared the same day; larger or heavily cluttered houses run to a second day and we will say so before you book, not on the morning.
Can you invoice a solicitor or an executor? Yes. On probate clearances we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. It can be settled from the estate once the grant comes through. There is no deposit — the invoice follows the work.
Do we need to sort or bag anything first? No. Take out what you are keeping and leave the rest. The team empty cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, lift carpets, underlay and gripper rods where they come up without damage, and sweep through afterwards.
Do you take fridges, freezers and mattresses? Yes, but they cannot travel in with the general load. Fridges and freezers are hazardous waste and have to be degassed; mattresses and upholstered furniture go by their own routes under the POPs rules. Just tell us they are there when you book.
Can you clear a flat if nobody can be there? Regularly. We work from photographs, a written scope and one set of keys. We have run whole Peckham clearances for executors who were several counties away. You get the waste transfer paperwork afterwards either way.
