Most house clearance work in Southsea starts the same way. Somebody ends up holding a set of keys they never asked for. A flat off the seafront, a terrace in the streets behind it — and there is a date attached to it that belongs to someone else: a solicitor, a buyer, a letting agent. We have been clearing houses since 2007, and Southsea, PO4 and PO5, is on the regular run rather than a special trip.
One of ours in PO5, April 2019. A flat in one of the low-rise blocks, and the whole of it went out in a single load. Which happens more often in Southsea than people expect, because a good many of the flats down here are small and have been lived in lightly for a long time. The person arranging it wasn't paying out of their own pocket and said so straight away: "I have forwarded your invoice to our solicitor who will arrange payment." That is about the most ordinary sentence in probate house clearance, and we hear a version of it most weeks. It also tells you why the job went smoothly: everybody knew from the start who was instructing us and who was settling up at the end.
Two loads in a day
Not everything goes in one load. One clearance we handled in August 2020 ran to a full load, then a second load on the same day, with two mattresses on top of that. Mattresses are the awkward part of any house — they take more room in a van than their weight deserves and they cannot be crushed in with the rest, so they get counted separately from the first item on the list. A house that needs two loads is not necessarily a hoarder house. It is usually just forty years of ordinary living with nothing thrown out.
A fair few of the Southsea jobs we take are arranged from a long way off. The property is here on Portsea Island and the person responsible for it is two hundred miles away, or further, doing the whole thing by email and photographs. That works. It works better if you tell us early what is staying.
Why we keep the paperwork on a Southsea house clearance
Every load that leaves a property comes back to you on paper. A Waste Transfer Note is issued for each load and each waste stream. A house clearance in Southsea that runs to general household waste, a batch of POP-classified furniture and, say, a stack of old paint tins in the outbuilding will generate more than one note. Paint is the clearest example: it cannot travel mixed in with sofas and carpet, it needs its own route to a facility that will take it, and if we find some we ring and ask before touching it rather than making the decision for you. Those notes take a week or two to come back from the transfer station, so nobody gets them on the day, but they do come, and people are right to ask for them.
We photograph every cleared room before we lock up, and where a sale is running we drop the keys back with whoever is handling it locally. That is the part people are actually buying: knowing what happened in a house they weren't standing in.
Where the vans go from here
Southsea sits at the bottom of Portsea Island, in the city of Portsmouth, in Hampshire — PO4 and PO5 mostly, and everything around them is a short run. We clear regularly in Eastney, Milton, Fratton, Old Portsmouth and the PO1 streets behind the Guildhall, North End and Hilsea in PO2, Copnor and Baffins in PO3, Buckland, and up over the creek to Cosham. Off the island we go out to Havant, Hayling Island, Waterlooville in PO7, Cowplain and Denmead, and as far east as Barnham in PO22 and Bognor Regis in PO21, over the county line into West Sussex. If it is the whole city you want rather than this end of it, there is a separate page for house clearance in Portsmouth. Across the harbour mouth and along the coast we also cover house clearance in Hayling Island and, further round the top of Langstone Harbour, house clearance in Emsworth.
Access here is decided street by street, not by postcode: the Victorian terraces around Fratton have no drives, so the van sits further off and the lads carry. Fratton is the nearest railway station to most of Southsea and the streets behind it are Victorian terraces with no drives — that's where the van has to sit further off than we'd like and the lads carry. Around Portsmouth & Southsea station the same applies with added bus traffic. Portsmouth Harbour is straightforward for the naval quarter end. Where a permit or a suspended bay is needed, Portsmouth City Council want notice, so ring them early — we can't apply on your behalf. Our waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency is CBDU419679, and we carry public liability cover. Ask and we'll send both across before the booking.
The kinds of house clearance we do in Southsea
Probate house clearance in Southsea
This is most of the diary. An executor, often a son or daughter living in another county, has a house or a flat to empty before it can be marketed, and a solicitor holding the file. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, whichever you prefer, and payment can come out of the estate rather than out of your own account. There is no deposit and nothing is asked for up front. Probate work is rarely urgent in the way people fear — what it needs is a clear list of what stays, because in a probate house clearance the things that matter to a family are almost never the expensive ones.
End of tenancy clearance, PO4 and PO5
Landlords and managing agents between tenants, usually with a check-in date already booked. An end of tenancy clearance is normally one load and a sweep-through, sometimes nothing more than the few things a departing tenant left in the hall cupboard. Tell us the check-in date when you ring and we will work backwards from it.
Flat clearance in PO5
A lot of Southsea is flats — converted Victorian houses, purpose-built blocks from the sixties and seventies, and a fair few sheltered schemes. Stairs, no lift, and a shared front door that has to stay shut are the usual conditions. We bring the smaller van where the road is tight and carry the rest.
Garage and loft clearance
Plenty of jobs here are not the house at all. A garage and loft clearance is its own thing: the loft has the boxes nobody opened after the last move, the garage has the paint, the tools and the bike frames, and both of them take longer per cubic foot than a lounge. If the loft insulation is to be left in place, say so and it will be.
Hoarder house clearance
Properties packed to the ceilings, where the doors only open halfway. Those are booked as more than one day from the start, and nobody on the team makes a face about it or talks about it afterwards.
Upholstery, and the rule people trip over
Sofas, armchairs, footstools, padded dining chairs and bean bags can't be tipped. Since the Environment Agency's guidance in January 2023, upholstered domestic seating has to be kept separate from other waste: that foam has to be tracked and incinerated at a permitted facility rather than shredded or landfilled. That is why POP-classified seating travels apart from a wooden wardrobe and comes back to you on its own transfer note. It isn't a rule we invented. Gas bottles are handled apart too, though for a different reason — they're pressurised and go back to a supplier or a designated point, not into a load.
What we can't put in the van
Sharps bins, medicines, asbestos sheet, solvents and gas canisters are not things a general house clearance van is permitted to take. Neither is anything liquid and unlabelled. We would rather say that at the quote stage than leave you with a surprise on the pavement, so if there is a yellow sharps bin in the property or a shed with drums in it, mention it on the phone. Sharps go back to a pharmacy, asbestos goes to a licensed contractor, and paint goes the separate route described above. Fridges, freezers and mattresses we do take — they simply travel and are recorded separately from everything else.
Half a house, or all of it
Not every job is a full house. Sometimes we're called in for nothing more than the last few items sitting in a property with the keys due to change hands inside a fortnight — a list sent over as a PDF, no storage wanted, done and gone. And we've done the opposite: houses where the loft has forty years in it and the garden has a shed nobody has opened since 2009. Executors, families sorting out a parent's house from another county, letting agents between tenancies — that's most of our diary around Portsmouth.
What happens to the contents
Furniture, books, bikes, crockery, tools — if it's still usable, we'd rather it went to a reuse project or a charity shop locally than into a skip, and that's the first sort we make on the day. Metals go for scrap. Electricals go through WEEE recycling. Whatever's genuinely finished goes to a permitted transfer station and comes back to you on paper, load by load.
What it costs, honestly
One answer only, and no numbers on a web page: ring the office on 0800 046 5555 with the postcode, the number of bedrooms and whatever is in the loft and the shed, or send photographs. Or a walk-round video, which is better — through the form on this page, and we will come back to you with a figure. The quote is free and it doesn't oblige you to anything. We would rather look at photographs of the actual rooms than guess from a description, and we would rather tell you a real figure for house clearance in Southsea than a comfortable one you'd have to hear us revise on the day.
Common questions about house clearance in Southsea
Do you clear the whole of Southsea, or only PO4 and PO5?
PO4 and PO5 are the home districts, and they are what this page is about. We also run into PO1, PO2 and PO3 across the rest of Portsea Island and out to Havant, Hayling Island and Waterlooville most weeks.
Can you invoice our solicitor for a probate clearance?
Yes. We invoice the solicitor, the executor or the estate directly, and payment can come from the estate. There is no deposit, and nothing is due before the work is done.
How long does a house clearance in Southsea take?
Most are a single day. A flat is often half of one. A house that needs two loads is still usually a day; a properly full house, or a hoarder house clearance, is booked as two days from the start so nobody is watching the clock at four in the afternoon.
Will I get proof the waste was disposed of properly?
Yes — a Waste Transfer Note for each load and each waste stream, sent on once they come back from the transfer station, which takes a week or two. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679 and we will send the certificate and the insurance across before you book.
Can you work with an executor who lives abroad?
Regularly. Photographs out, list of what stays back, keys with the agent or in a keysafe, photographs of every cleared room at the end. A good many Southsea clearances are arranged that way and none of them needed the executor on the doorstep.
Ring 0800 046 5555, or send the photographs through the form on this page, and we will tell you what house clearance in Southsea would involve for your property.
