About this site

Why it exists

Every published guide to house clearance quotes a different price for the same house. We found ranges from £275 to £1,200 for a three-bedroom, with one guide contradicting itself on its own page. That spread is not carelessness so much as a category error: the cheap end prices a van collecting a pile you already sorted, and the expensive end prices a team emptying every drawer. Nobody asks which one you need.

So the calculator asks that first, and the method page shows the sources and the assumptions behind every figure, including the ones that are still a guess.

Who publishes it

This site is researched and edited by Taro Schenker, a web publisher who builds cost and reference tools. He compiled the price model from operator rate cards and published guides, wrote every page, and is accountable for the numbers being right.

It is published by Known By One, LLC, 131 Continental Dr, Suite 305, Newark, DE 19713, United States. You can reach us at contact@houseclearancecost.co.uk or via the contact page.

How the site is funded

You should know this before you weigh anything else here. The site is free, carries no advertising, and asks for no sign-up. It is funded by passing enquiries to a house clearance company: if you use the quote form, your details go to one UK clearance firm we work with, and we are paid for the introduction whether or not you go on to book the job.

That arrangement pays for the research, and it also gives us an obvious incentive you are entitled to weigh. So, plainly:

• The calculator does not know who pays us. It is a checked-in cost model that runs in your browser and returns the same figure whether or not you ever fill in the form.
• We publish the numbers that argue against using a firm at all. The guides to free clearance, charity collection and being paid for contents exist because those are sometimes the right answer, and each one costs us a lead.
• Our estimates run above the published guides, not below them. A site optimising for introductions would lowball to make booking feel cheap. Ours is built up from an operator’s real rate card and lands higher. We would rather you were not surprised on the day.

What this site is not

• Not a clearance company. We do not own vans, hold a waste carrier licence, or clear properties. We publish cost data and pass enquiries on.
• Not a directory or a marketplace. There is one partner firm, not a bidding pool, and no one pays for placement.
• Not a quote. Every figure here is an estimate. Volume is what firms actually price on, and it cannot be judged accurately without seeing the property.
• Not legal or probate advice. Our pages on clearing after a death describe common practice, not your obligations as an executor. Where an estate is involved, take advice.

Keeping it current

Prices carry a “verified” month tied to the date the source rate cards were last checked, and it is shown on every page that quotes a figure, so a stale model is visible rather than silent. Landfill Tax changes each 1 April and is refreshed by hand from HMRC’s own publications. Charity and council policies were read from each organisation’s own pages on the date shown.

If something here is wrong, please tell us — corrections are made to the model itself, not just the prose.