Bereaved people face a wide range of emotions and many genuine issues. House clearance or downsizing can be the only option when sorting your late loved one’s estate, and this area can be complex. We aim to provide you with an option where you can be guided and supported by professional and compassionate people. This is a problematic time, for which we strive to make your life easier.
To provide emotional and practical guidance on the issues surrounding house clearance for those people who are elderly and are thinking about downsizing for financial reasons, for lack of personal care by family, or for those who have lost loved ones and are sorting their affairs. Everyone loses an elderly relative at some stage. In addition to that, families face an enormous amount of personal possessions when dealing with them. Whatever the reason for the grief, the issues are relatively similar. We want to make the transition of house clearance, whether a whole house or downsizing, an age-friendly process that will make both the seller and the buyer happy. This will result in referrals and could result in further work at some stage. For those of you who already have domestic clients, the cross-selling potential for those house clearances is good, as you will already be in the house familiarizing yourself with the family and the contents.
Understanding the Importance of Sensitive and Professional Handling
Bereavement is a tough time for anyone left behind. All emotions seem magnified later: grief can be very intense, yes, but other emotions, too, can feel more robust and less predictable. Even mundane tasks can seem like colossal hurdles. Your whole world has changed – is changing – and, fundamentally, very little else has. Bereavement house clearances often occur during this time, when somebody’s belongings are removed from the home in preparation for a sale. Many clients refer to the ‘clearance’ of their beloved parents’ house as the ‘cleanse’, reflecting the physical and emotional needs that clearance can often meet.
The act of gently and respectfully clearing the house of someone who has died is essential for both the family and the will executor. Professionals who come into the home to complete the work are trusted to be in this family space and often work alone and unsupervised. This clearance must be conducted professionally, showing respect for the family and sensitivity towards their loss. The family of the person who has died they are often aware that this emotional decision-making process is made even more painful by the decision to dispose of their loved one’s belongings. Entrusting the clearance to a professional – a person who knows how to complete the work quickly, effectively, and with minimal disruption, and with as much reuse and recycling as possible – can relieve some of the emotional stress at a time when this is needed. A professional with training and qualifications knows how to keep a clearance safe and organized and knows how to meet these critical responsibilities to the people in whose homes they are working. The officer maintains records of the family’s items and helps to sell valuable bulky items. The collector takes tons of donations to charity shops, knows how to reassure a family about the extent and procedures of an environmentally clean and how to handle a problematic visit from an angry extended relative!
Initial Steps in the Bereavement House Clearance Process
Before conducting a bereavement house clearance, take a moment to gather yourself. This might be very difficult because of the emotions involved in losing a loved one. Seeing their belongings and home upturned can be very tough, and you should only handle some aspects you can handle. You are under no obligation to start a bereavement house clearance immediately. After you have had the time to reflect, between one or two weeks after your loved one has passed, you should move on to the following steps to ensure that everything will be done as painlessly as possible.
First, you must assess the extent of the clearance job ahead of you. This will inform your planning and give you an idea of the scale of operations. Once you have assessed the very few items that you know from the outset have to be kept in the house for whatever reason, you can begin to plan and arrange the order in which things must be done. This will give you a goal to aim for in due course. The following steps that have to be made are legal ones.
Given that the property has not yet entered into the deceased person’s estate – whether a will has been left or not – you will need to have the authority of the estate’s representatives to carry out the work. This typically means members of the immediate and close family or persons named in the will carry out estate administration. The house will probably be sold at some point in the future as part of the winding-up procedure of the estate, but that will not be done just yet. In not dissimilar circumstances, where the house does not have an accident emergency call-out nature, your next step should be to arrange a meeting at the house, once the basic assessment has been carried out, with the legal owner. The meeting is between you and the legal owner, and you must earn their trust to conduct the removal research and valuation of the chattels. The point at which you carry out chattel valuation is removed in step
A bereavement house clearance might require a number of stakeholders to be consulted, so the clearance must be conducted as a structured process if all relevant parties are to be satisfied.
Assessment and Planning
One of the first things involved in organising a bereavement house clearance is assessing what and how much you will need to contend with. Sometimes, a property is densely stacked with personal treasures that may need time to sort through. You may be surprised to find other properties may turn out to be much emptier than anticipated due to previous partial clearances or pre-storage in nursing homes and care facilities. The first step in the process will be to classify rooms or areas that require one type of planning compared to others. Where parameters are available, we have created individual sections for your convenience. Gather your supplies—stickers, labels, black waste bags, recycled items—an in-law as a professional organiser gives you labels pre-made to categorise items into ‘Keep’, ‘Donate’ or ‘Discard’.
- Consider the Items Within Your Clearance to Make Planning Easier: Some items are more complex or time-consuming to clear than others. If you have a perfect collection of vinyl and 78 records, it will be best to classify where these are before attempting broader room clearances. Other domestic collectors’ items can also take longer to realise the price. Plan and perform this clearance activity from a cognitive relative opposite room over to the other.
- Establish a Timeline: The pace at which you complete these declarations might indicate the timeframe to set for the clearance. Place nobody under undue pressure by setting aside too little time. Don’t lose power or interest in the clearance by giving yourself too much time and directionless confidence that it will all get done indeterminately.
- Enlist Friends and Family to Assist in the Sorting and Packing Process: In-laws may have contacts or family connections with charities if relevant. Offer practical and emotional support to the bereaved.
- Create a Checklist: Far be it from typical households, use the checklist to guarantee the completeness of all items.
- Prepare Mentally: This is the sort of clearance you will never forget. No one also believes the former resident of the basics. It is acceptable to approach this situation with caution and mental preparation.
Practical Aspects of House Clearance
House clearance after bereavement is primarily a practical method of sorting and disposing of everything they own, making the property more saleable or reducing liability. There are many ways to manage it, but below are a few of our tried and tested techniques that we regularly utilise.
Decide how to sort possessions. One alternative is to set up everything into categories:
- Small items to be kept.
- Collections or groups that are to be kept.
- Items to be sold or given away.
Items in these categories are straightforward to store and sort safely. However, sometimes several people arrive who will be sorting and emotionally engaging with things: if in a hurry, things may be overlooked or lost in dusty clutter. With this in mind, we will sort the small items to keep or give away quite quickly if there are a lot of those, and store or pack all like items together for sorting later. We will carefully photograph all collections before storing them.
Safe removal and dealing with the transport of other items! Carefully packed, these collections can be more easily sorted later in a less time-limited manner. It might be a good idea to think carefully about whether the people you are helping and support staff should be instructed on how to lift and put items down, rather than slide them about, to help prevent accidents and keep your shoulders and backs safe. Further, offer elbow and knee protection when people may be sitting on the floor sorting! This is also an emotional and unhelpful thing to occur. It is very beneficial to have responsible recycling, reuse, and disposal options for cleared items when doing a house clearance.
There are inevitably practical methods to sorting and disposing of everything in a house clearance and valuable things to consider. However, when people die, their possessions become imbued with emotional and sometimes moral value and tidy sorting may seem intimidating and wrong! It is undoubtedly essential to make an appointment and the reasons for the appointment clear; allow them to gather precious things; only involve decision-making where it is necessary or cannot be postponed; locate where to receive support; respect the individual – by involving them, the deceased, and the family in choices; reduce the need to handle belongings; understand their wishes and admire their approach to personal items; respect the possessions left; appreciate that house clearance is a lengthy process and requires goodwill; offer support. These are the same areas where many house clearance concerns could surface.
Sorting and Organising Belongings
Copious belongings are always one of the most daunting aspects of dealing with a deceased estate. In any house clearance, their engagement is paradoxical – while they can be a significant, often cathartic step in grieving and saying goodbye to our most treasured family and friends. This allows us to reflect on the past and, in a way, keep their memory alive. Once the most recent items are done, one can often date back to times when the deceased were possibly happier. This was a time when we usually forgot or didn’t see our loved ones in happier times. As there will naturally be conflict, loneliness, and isolation, lands with generations of belongings are where the physical and emotional attachment to memory is at its greatest.
It’s best to start with specific categories rather than a specific room. The main three are: should be sold, should be given away or donated, and unfortunately, the ‘throw away/host’ pile for that lives in the loft – which should be the last place to attend, as we can often feel guilty or upset when they’ve been thrown away. The things we mark for everyone should be left unattended and empowering, and when done as a family, should be a unanimous decision. Once these are out, the lofts are much easier to work on. Put categories in different piles or boxes – then mark them with a pen or sticky note.
Ethical Considerations in Bereavement House Clearance
There are significant ethical and moral considerations to take into account. We understand the importance of a bereavement house clearance, and all items we consider sellable are divided equally among the family and deducted from the overall cost. A Geordie house clearance can be a delicate process when dealing with someone’s possessions. We alleviate the pressure the families face by looking after the sentimental value of the items and not only pricing them based on their worth. When dealing with the loss of a loved one, it is not always clear to all family members that emotions do not always allow them to make a rational judgment of the value of these items. If an object is worth more money, we always ensure you are aware, but we do not inflate prices. One final thing we always try to do is price an item at a price that the person being left the item can afford to purchase. Ethically, should you buy an item at a price when you cannot afford to repurchase your own family’s items? It can cause sympathetic heartache. Bereaved families often feel satisfied and relieved when they know that the family member (the person who left the item) is left with more “memories” than monetary value.
Ethical considerations:
The deceased may have wanted these items to go elsewhere after they passed away. In the case of a bereavement clearance, there can be a hidden will or wish list left by the deceased. The bereaved family often knew items meant to be passed down to a loved one, friend, or neighbour. One critical ethical consideration would be to ensure that these either go to the people they were meant for or if they are to be sold, that the money raised finds its way to those the deceased wished to benefit. A person needs to sell someone’s belongings, mainly after they have passed away, not to break confidentiality and to respect the person’s wishes and feelings. Who has the right to dispose of original cars or toys, a lifetime of collecting and loving, to enable a caring daughter to feel the want and pleasure of objects full of memories and love?
Moral considerations:
Should the care of a person mean more than justice and fairness? Suppose three items of great significant value are worth £5,000, £7,000, and £10,000, and it is known that the deceased would wish one item each to a family of three siblings. In that case, there is an increase in cost to yourself as a clearance service to ensure the client’s wishes and what the “dearly departed” wanted to happen is paramount before monetary or self-want issues. It is equally essential in a victim’s world to ensure that the breakdown in communications is always resolved by either striving to sell, pack, and deliver or return loved items to where the deceased would want these items to end up or where the family would appreciate the “background story” and the sentimental reasoning about wanting the original children in the family to be left with these items, or where a wife may need a souvenir of a true loving story that has been deeply respected or cherished for life. Always ensure immediate family members, if not directly involved, ease the guilt of no value left, start to pause millions of memories conveyed by second-hand goods, hold the remembrance and discussion, and offer a low price or give the collected memories away with a lovely history attached.
Respecting the Deceased’s Wishes
The top priority for carrying out a bereavement house clearance according to British values and guidelines is to respect the wishes of the deceased. Although not all families know if the individual making the will has mentioned specific articles, even if no mention is made, the will itself can suggest the values of the person who has died. If the deceased made no will, that does not mean they did not take the matter seriously. Older people would say to us that it’s ‘my money waiting for the doctor’ as paying for the will and funeral costs was sensible. When a person prepares for death, we are keen to know if any articles have been promised before death to others as an informal arrangement for direct inheritance, so some instruction may be understood without reading the will itself. The last detail considered is to check that there is no ‘secret’ or missing will tucked away.
Families are advised to talk openly about attached labels and named items, as it is our experience that not doing so may have emotional consequences further down the line. Think of some clothes you would dearly like to wear today and why. And imagine that familiar feeling of missing that person and missing them in that outfit. Families that take the time to identify intended inheritors feel better about releasing attachments and do not need to second-evidence our advice. We don’t interfere with a snail’s path as it goes along nor decide in favour or against the words’ they can have it.’ We ask you to name the snails of your family. Some deceased used to withhold specific instructions until the family was seated around the kitchen table to discuss ‘the unsaid.’ Discussion of attachments will confirm intended lists, but lack of dialogue will tend toward charitable disposal, and only an executor/administrator can decide legally.
In closing, we would like to reinforce our recommendation that you engage with a professional house clearance service to manage the stressful, time-consuming, and often overwhelming task of house clearance. Dealing with an experienced house clearance service offers many advantages that could ease your burden during a difficult time. At best, the process can be a chance to heal and be brutally honest about time, people, and stuff; at worst, it’s the last thing standing between you and the first steps of your new life.
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