davenay67

In our area estate sales are quite common, the idea that the contents of an entire house can be dealt with in a single weekend.

Relevant to my other thread about UK bank accounts, my mother will be moving from her own home to a care home. A company that handles this type of estate sale would be valuable given my location here in the US. Does anyone know of this type of service in the UK.

I have used Gumtree in the past to sell individual items, but the idea of selling the most of the contents of a house does not see viable in this manner.

What have people in a similar situation done in the past?

mrken30

Car boot sales are the nearest equivalent I think

petitefrancaise

We have estate sales down here in Austin. I see signs up every now and then in my neighbourhood. No idea where you find out about them though apart from on places like nextdoor.com etc, maybe craigslist?

Noorah101

The OP is wanting to know how to do an estate - type sale in the UK.

Rene

petitefrancaise

I realised once I had posted, then went to delete but got distracted by a cold glass of rose!!

Marc_ely

I don't think this exists in the UK. Sometimes an estate agent may handle house clearance if that agent has links to an auction house. Otherwise you have to use a house clearance firm. They will either offer you some cash, or if they think there is not much worth (to re-sell) you'll have to pay them!
I went through this last year when my Mum died and I had to clear her house. It was quite heart breaking putting a (low) price on a lifetime of stuff collected.

md95065

Do you actually need or want to make any money out of this or do you just want to get the house cleared?

If it is the latter, then there appear to be several charities in the UK which will arrange a house clearance for you for free. For example: https://www.bhf.org.uk/shop/donating...ouse-clearance

If there are some valuable items then you could perhaps try to arrange to sell those through a local auction house and then use a house clearance service to deal with the rest.

Pulaski

There are companies that do "house clearance" - typically you pay them and they remove everything from the house deciding what to put in their second hand store, what to send to auction, or otherwise sell, and what to put in a skip. I believe the process is to ask for bids from several companies as obviously if there are a number of salable things then the clearer can make money from selling stuff.

After my grandmother died the family went to her home and took any items they were interested in - I got an old radiogram kinda thingy, and an ashtray that I had made for my grandfather when I was about five years old. When we we all done a house clearer removed everything else.

Just Google <"Your town" UK house clearance> - for example there are at least four or five different companies operating in Gloucester.

ian-mstm

Lovejoy would know what to do!

Ian

Pulaski

Yes, he would - he'd know somebody, but would never dirty his hands in that end of the market. I am sure he wouldn't be averse to picking up a valuable item or two if he could get his hands on them though!

What a great show that was - I always hoped that they would bring it back for a third run, as the last show left that possibility open, but after what must be 25 years or more, I have long since given up hope of that. I have been meaning to look for a box set of Lovejoy DVDs. I really must do that some time, maybe soon as I am running out of episodes of Breaking Bad.