House Clearance Broadstairs, Kent

We have been doing house clearance in Broadstairs and the rest of Thanet since 2007. A fair share of it is probate work booked by somebody who no longer lives in Kent at all. So this page is about how a house clearance in Broadstairs actually runs. The parking, the loft ladders, the things that cannot go in the van — rather than a list of adjectives about us. Easiest to start with a real one.

The van had nowhere obvious to go and the owner was two hundred miles away. A basement flat off one of the roads at the St Peter's end of CT10. Steps down from the pavement, no lift, and a stretch of road where you take whatever kerb space is going before the school run starts. The owner lived up in Northamptonshire and never came down; he answered our questions by email, told us what was staying, and left the rest to us. It came out as one full Luton load, with an upright fridge freezer and a mattress taken off the load and handled separately, and a clean afterwards. The flat was going back on the market and nobody wanted to make the journey twice. He settled up online once the photographs came through and typed the job reference in himself. We never met him.

That's the shape of most of what we do along this stretch of Kent coast. Broadstairs sits out on the corner of the Isle of Thanet. St Peter's behind it and Kingsgate and Botany Bay along the cliffs. We work the whole of Thanet — house clearance in Margate in CT9, house clearance in Ramsgate in CT11, Birchington in CT7, Minster, Manston and the villages inland in CT12, and Westgate-on-Sea along the coast. Broadstairs railway station is on the Thanet loop, so the London trains come in via Ramsgate one way and Margate the other. Handy to know, because a fair number of the people who book us arrive that way, meet the team, hand over a key and go home again the same afternoon.

What Broadstairs throws at a clearance

Two things, mostly. The first is the streets down towards Viking Bay: narrow, one-way in places, cars nose to tail all summer. A slope at the end of them that you don't want to be carrying a wardrobe down. If the property is in that pocket, tell us when you ring. It changes where we park and it changes how many trips across the pavement the lads make. Is the thing that actually eats a day.

The second is what's inside the houses here. A lot of Victorian and Edwardian terraces, a lot of big old semis carved into flats in the sixties. A lot of retirement bungalows on the St Peter's and Reading Street side. Bungalows sound easy. They're often not — the loft ladder goes up out of a hallway too tight to swing anything. The loft is where forty years of the household ended up. Out towards Stone Bay and North Foreland the houses get bigger and so do the garages. Garage and loft clearance there can be half the job on its own. Bromstone and the Dumpton side are mostly post-war semis, which are kinder on access and harder on lofts.

Not every job is a puzzle, and it would be dishonest to write a page full of the awkward ones. One from August 2020 went about as plainly as they go: a house clearance run by our own team, one full load out of the property. All of it booked through regulated recycling and disposal with the transfer paperwork kept. What we told that customer at the enquiry stage is what we tell everybody. One to two working days' notice is normally all we need, nothing is asked for up front, the invoice follows once the job is finished, and the team is at the door at nine in the morning. That one wanted a date more than it wanted anything clever, and it got one.

Jobs like that are the argument against hiring a skip and doing it yourself. A skip on a Broadstairs street needs a permit from Thanet District Council if it's going on the highway, it sits there for days advertising an empty house. It does nothing about carrying the contents down a bungalow loft ladder or out of a first-floor flat. Our lot bring the labour with them, and if it's only a van-load of rubbish rather than a whole property, that's house rubbish removal and it's a shorter visit.

Where it all goes afterwards

Nothing useful gets tipped if we can help it. Furniture in decent order, crockery, tools, books, clean bedding. We'd rather it went to a charity shop or a reuse scheme in Thanet than into a skip, and the team sorts it on the day rather than pretending to. Metal, wood, electricals and cardboard get separated out and sent for recycling. What's genuinely finished with is taken to a permitted facility and weighed in. We keep the paperwork for every load. Our waste carrier registration is CBDU419679, and you're welcome to check it on the Environment Agency register before we start.

Some items sit outside the ordinary load and have to be handled separately. The rules say so and not because we fancy the extra work. Fridges and freezers, for one — an upright fridge freezer and a small under-counter one both go for degassing rather than into the back of the van with everything else. Mattresses travel on their own as well, for bulk rather than because they are hazardous. Upholstered furniture is the one that surprises people: sofas, armchairs, dining chairs with padded seats, padded headboards, all of it falls under the POPs rules that came in in 2023. Means it can't be mixed in with general waste and has to go through its own controlled route. Tins of paint and gas bottles we will take, but they are kept apart from the load. Small things, but they're the ones people forget when they're ringing round.

Executors, and clearing at a distance

A good half of our Thanet and east Kent work is probate house clearance. A decent chunk of that comes through solicitors' offices rather than families. The owner of that CT10 basement flat was in Northamptonshire and never came down once. He read the photographs, said what was staying, and that was the whole of his involvement. That's normal here rather than unusual. Nobody expects to sit on the Isle of Thanet for a week watching a house being emptied, and mostly nobody does.

If that's you: we don't need you present. Keys can come from a neighbour, an agent, a key safe or the post. The team photographs the property on arrival and again once it's empty, so you can see what was done without standing in the road all day. Invoices go to the executor, the solicitor or the estate directly. That's routine on probate work and nobody blinks at it. The estimate is free and puts you under no obligation.

Two practical things about a probate house clearance here. First, tell us before the day what is being kept back for the family. A chest of drawers, a box of photographs, the contents of one wardrobe — and put a note on it, because a team that starts at nine will have the landing clear by half past. Second, if the property is going to an agent afterwards rather than being sold with the estate, say so, since an end of tenancy or agent-ready finish means a clean after the clearance and a check of the garden and the bin store.

Full houses, and what we don't say about them

Some of the properties we're called to have not been emptied in decades. Boxes stacked to the picture rail, wardrobes you can't open, a spare room you can only get a foot into. It happens more often than people think, and it is never the fault of whoever inherited the problem. We turn up, we get on with it, and there's no commentary from the van. A hoarder house clearance takes more loads and usually more than a day, and you'll be told that on the phone or after the team's walk round, never sprung on you at four in the afternoon. If the contents are decayed or there's anything biological involved that's a different job again, and it gets quoted as one.

Getting an estimate for a house clearance in Broadstairs

Photographs are the best way to get an accurate answer without anybody driving out. Send them through the form on this page — pictures of each room, the loft hatch, the garage and the garden — tell us what's staying. We'll come back with a written estimate that says how many loads and how many days we think it'll take, and what would change that. It's free and it ties you to nothing. If the loads turn out heavier than they looked. It happens, especially with books and tools — the team leader rings you before doing anything, not afterwards.

If it's a flat clearance rather than a whole house, say which floor and whether there's a lift. In Broadstairs that is usually the difference between a straightforward day and a long one. Cleaning after the clearance can be added if you want it. It's worth having on a flat going straight back to an agent.

Booking one

Ring 0800 046 5555, or use the form on this page, with the postcode, the property type, what's staying. Anything awkward about the access: a key safe code, a light that doesn't work, a shared drive, a stairlift in the hall, a shed nobody's opened since the eighties. One to two working days' notice is usually all we need. If you've a date in mind we can put it in the diary now.

The day runs in an order. Walk round first with whoever has the key — or over the phone, if that's you — and agree what stays. Then the big furniture, while the van is empty and the pavement is still quiet. Lofts before the afternoon, because a loft ladder and tired legs are a poor combination. Small items, the garden and the garage after that, then a sweep through. The team starts at 9am and aims to finish the whole property that day.

We're not a national franchise with a Kent phone number. We come to Broadstairs, Ramsgate, Margate, Birchington and Westgate-on-Sea. We've been doing this long enough in CT postcodes to know where the vans fit and where they don't. As one east Kent customer put it after we'd finished: "Thank you and your team for your hard work."

Questions we get asked about house clearance in Broadstairs

Do you cover the whole of Broadstairs and CT10?

Yes — the town centre and the streets down to Viking Bay, St Peter's, Reading Street, Stone Bay, Kingsgate, North Foreland, Botany Bay, Bromstone and the Dumpton side. The roads out to the edge of CT10. Margate, Ramsgate, Birchington and Westgate-on-Sea are the same run for us.

Can you do a probate house clearance in Broadstairs if I live in another county?

Yes, and a lot of ours are exactly that. Keys come from a neighbour, an agent, a key safe or the post; the team photographs the property before and after; you never have to travel.

Can you invoice the solicitor or the estate?

Yes. Invoices go to the executor, the solicitor or the estate directly, which is routine on probate work.

What won't you take?

Asbestos, and anything needing specialist decontamination — that has to be dealt with properly before we start. Fridges, freezers, mattresses and upholstered furniture we do take. They leave by their own controlled routes rather than in with the general load.