Probate Clearance After a Death: What to Expect

When you’ve recently lost a loved one, the last thing you want to do is deal with their home. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary task and one that can be made easier with a probate clearance service.

Probate clearance is more than simply removing everything from the home and selling it. The items within must be catalogued and inventoried for dispersal of all assets. This can only be done when everything is properly accounted for. It’s a difficult task when you’re still mourning and can be hard to work through. Not only are there a lot of memories that are bound to come up, but you may also feel overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done.

You have two main options when it comes to clearing a house. First, you can do it yourself, or you can hire someone to handle everything for you.

Take Care of Your Own Clearance

If you do intend to clear a home on your own, it’s a good idea to bring in other relatives or friends who can help you out. First, make certain you are permitted to remove items from the home. This may only be allowed after probate has finished. Otherwise, you’ll only be permitted to inventory items, which is also a big undertaking.

Once you are permitted to clear the house, go through with rubbish bins and remove anything that needs to be thrown away. Don’t forget to check papers carefully before getting rid of them; they may look like scrap, but they could be extremely important. At this stage, it may be helpful to hire a skip so you can rapidly eliminate all the rubbish in the home.

You may also wish to throw away any broken items and furniture that cannot be used or resold easily. Make note of everything else in the home that may be worth selling. You can then take photos and put these on the market, or you may prefer to have an estate sales company handle this aspect for you. Alternatively, divide the items between living relatives.

Hiring a Probate Clearance Company

If you prefer to let others manage things, have a probate clearance service manage this task for you. They can come in and provide you with a full inventory and clear everything out as needed. This leaves you with an empty home that you can then sell more easily.



If you do choose to go with a clearance service, make sure to remove anything you want from the home before the company comes in. They will then manage the rest of the clearance for you and may notify you as needed.

Clearing out a loved one’s home once they’ve passed is never pleasant, but if you accept some help, it will be a faster, smoother and less stressful process.

Looking for probate clearance services? Henry Skip Hire & House Clearance provides safe, insured clearances for you. Contact us today.