The instruction on that one was unusual: take the rubbish, leave everything else. February 2023, a one-bed flat in SW15, and the person organising it had put it in writing before we ever loaded a van. The furniture was staying, the clothes were staying, the belongings were staying. Only the litter and the loose rubbish were going. There was a parking space to the left of the property that belonged to the flat and would be empty for us, no restrictions on the road. In that stretch of Putney is worth more than people realise. One other detail came ahead of the job: the doorbell didn't work. Ring the mobile on arrival and someone would come down.
She also asked about adding a clean. We said yes, but we were straight about the limits of it. Our teams don't tidy things that aren't being removed, so if the kitchen surfaces and floors still had her own belongings sitting on them, the cleaners couldn't get at the surfaces underneath. She thought about it and decided to do the tidying herself and book the clean separately. Sensible. The clearance went in the next morning.
That's a fairly typical Putney booking, actually. Small flat, short notice, a specific brief rather than "empty the lot".
A house clearance on the High Street, after the squatters
The other end of the scale was a commercial building on the High Street in SW15, taken back in April 2026 after squatters had been living in it and had left verminous waste behind them across the premises. The company that owned it wasn't in London at all. A property firm based over in Surrey, out towards Godalming — so nobody on their side had stood inside the building since it was taken back.
That changes how you run a job. When the client can't walk the site, you become their eyes. We photographed the state of it before we started, photographed the loads going out. Sent the lot through as we went. The director's own answer, when the photographs and the invoice landed, was that he wasn't based in London and had asked a relative of one of our lads to pop round and confirm he was happy with everything — which he did. That's a fair way to run it from a distance. We'd rather someone checked than took our word for it.
Days of graft, protective kit, and waste that had to be handled as verminous rather than tipped in with general household. The order matters on a job like that. You strip the loose waste first so the floor becomes visible and you can see what you're actually dealing with, then the fixtures and the fittings that have been pulled about, then the treatment goes in last with the rooms empty. There's no sense fumigating around a pile of rubbish you're going to carry out tomorrow.
Where the vans go
Our base is on the Chessington side, which is why the KT postcodes and SW15 sit on the same run for us. Putney house clearance work goes out on that run alongside SW18 in Wandsworth and Southfields, SW19 for Wimbledon and Wimbledon Village, SW11 in Battersea, SW12 in Balham, SW17 in Tooting, SW16 towards Streatham, SW4 in Clapham and SW8 across South Lambeth, Stockwell and the Nine Elms side. SW15 itself takes in Putney, Putney Heath, Roehampton, Kingston Vale and the Barnes edge. The same week's diary usually has Earlsfield, Furzedown, Colliers Wood, Merton Park and Merton Abbey on it as well.
All Greater London, though the paperwork splits it — SW15 sits in Wandsworth's borough. The boroughs keep their own rules on bulky waste and their own tips, which is why a Wandsworth answer isn't automatically a Lambeth one.
Practically, the van comes up through Kingston and along the A3 or round the park. Southfields, Wandsworth, Roehampton, Wimbledon and Barnes are all on the way rather than a detour. If you're near Putney station or the District line platforms at East Putney, we know which side streets we can stand a van on and which we can't. If your property sits the other side of the A3 we may already be covering it from the base — see house clearance in Kingston upon Thames, Surbiton or New Malden, all on the same run.
Parking, lifts and the actual logistics
A house clearance in Putney punishes the unprepared. The High Street has bus lanes with cameras on them and no realistic loading for a Luton van in the middle of the day. Work there gets an early start or a bay suspension arranged in advance. The residential streets behind, running up towards the Heath, are controlled parking. One bay is rarely enough for a full clearance.
The big purpose-built blocks along Putney Hill are their own puzzle. Lifts that need booking with the porter, bin stores already full by Friday, a service road you can only reverse into. Flat clearance in a block like that is a different animal to a house with a driveway. The distance from the door to the van is the job, and the lift is the bottleneck. We've done flat clearance in blocks where the porter gave us a two-hour window on the goods lift and everything had to be staged in the hallway ready to go.
Tell us the floor, tell us whether there's a lift. Tell us where a van can legally sit for three hours. Those three answers shape a Putney house clearance more than the volume does. A first-floor Victorian conversion with a turn in the stair can take longer than a four-bedroom house on the Chessington side with a driveway. The wardrobe that came up in pieces will be going down in pieces as well.
What leaves the property, and where it ends up
We're a registered waste carrier — licence CBDU419679 — and we're insured. Matters the day something gets scuffed on a communal staircase. We've been clearing houses since 2007.
Whatever still has some use in it, we'd rather see used again. Furniture in decent order, working white goods, books, tools, unopened household bits. We look for a charity shop or a community project close by before anything else, because a sofa that gets sold on in SW15 or SW18 is a sofa nobody has to pay to bury. Metal goes for scrap. Cardboard, paper, garden waste and clean timber get split on the van where there's room to do it. What genuinely can't be reused or recycled goes into a permitted transfer facility. We keep the transfer notes, so if you ever need to show where the contents of a house went, the paperwork exists.
Two things slow a load down. Sofas, armchairs and other upholstered seating fall under the persistent organic pollutant rules, meaning the foam can't be mixed in with ordinary waste and has to be sent down its own controlled route. That's the law, and we'd rather count them at the quote stage than argue on the day. And tins of paint, gas cylinders, solvents, asbestos sheeting or car batteries can't ride in a household load at all. Point them out and we'll tell you who takes them locally.
What a house clearance in Putney costs, and who we invoice
We don't publish a figure, because we've never seen one that was honest. Ring the office on 0800 046 5555 and talk it through, or send photographs. Or a short video walking through each room — and you'll have a figure back before anyone knocks on your door. That's the whole of our answer on cost: tell us what's there, we'll tell you what it comes to.
There is no deposit and nothing to pay up front. On a probate house clearance we invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly. The payment can come out of the estate once it settles rather than out of anybody's own pocket. Executors handling a Putney flat clearance from Yorkshire or from abroad ask for this constantly. It is the normal way round for us, not a favour.
We learned to write everything down the hard way. Years back, on an SW15 job, a customer and the office ended up in a long argument over whether a "clearance" included scrubbing the place out afterwards. Both sides thought they'd agreed something different — he was certain a fumigation and a clean were in the brief; we were certain we'd quoted the clearance. Since then every quote we send lists what's included, room by room. Clearance, cleaning, treatment — because a paragraph of plain English at the start is cheaper than a fortnight of emails at the end.
Probate and estate work in Putney
A large share of the house clearance Putney sends us is probate: a flat that has to be emptied before it goes on the market, a solicitor's file with a deadline on it, an executor two hundred miles away who cannot keep coming down. We are used to working from a set of keys and a phone number. We photograph the property before we start and after we finish, so the executor has something to put on the file and something to show the beneficiaries, and we set aside anything that looks like it matters. Paperwork, share certificates, photographs, jewellery — rather than making a judgement about it ourselves.
Probate flat clearance in the blocks around Putney Hill and East Putney is the commonest version of this. Managing agents want notice, porters want a lift booking. The sale often can't proceed until the flat is empty, so the date matters as much as the work. Tell us the deadline you are working to and we will tell you honestly whether we can hit it.
Hoarder house clearance in Putney, and properties that have got out of hand
Some places are packed to the ceiling, with paths worn between the piles and doors that only open halfway. We turn up, we work through it steadily, and nobody passes comment. Between us we've been doing this long enough that nothing in a Putney terrace or a Roehampton flat is going to raise an eyebrow. We watch as we go for the things that hide in that sort of house. Deeds, savings books, jewellery, envelopes tucked inside books — and they get set aside for you rather than binned.
Common questions
How much notice do you need? Usually one or two working days. Short notice is normal in Putney — flats change hands quickly here and a completion date has a habit of moving. If you have a date in mind, say so when you ring and we'll tell you straight away whether it's ours to give.
What time do you arrive? Nine in the morning, and the aim is to finish the property the same day. On the big commercial jobs and the badly cluttered ones that isn't realistic. We'll say so before you book rather than after.
Do I need to sort or bag anything first? No. The team clears cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, lifts carpets where they're going, and takes the lot. The only thing worth doing beforehand is pulling out what you want to keep and putting it in one room, clearly marked.
Can you clear just part of a property? Yes, and it's a common brief here. The SW15 job at the top of this page was exactly that. Tell us what stays and put it in writing if you can; ambiguity is what causes trouble on a partial clearance, not the work.
Do you do cleaning as well? We do, but with a limit worth knowing: cleaners can only clean what's exposed. If the surfaces are still covered in belongings that aren't being removed, they can't get underneath them. Book the clean for after the clearance, not around it.
Who do you invoice on a probate clearance? The solicitor, the executor or the estate — whichever suits. There's no deposit, nothing up front, and on probate matters the invoice can wait until the estate settles.
Which areas do you cover from here? SW15 and the neighbouring districts. SW11, SW12, SW16, SW17, SW18, SW19, SW4 and SW8 — plus the Kingston side, where the vans are based.
Are you licensed? Registered waste carrier, licence CBDU419679, and insured. Ask for the transfer notes and you'll get them.
Getting a house clearance in Putney into the diary
Ring 0800 046 5555, or email the postcode, the floor, the parking situation and a rough idea of what's in there. Photos help most. You'll get a figure, a date, and a plain description of what the team will and won't be doing. Whether that's a one-bedroom flat clearance off the Upper Richmond Road or an entire commercial floor on the High Street.
