The team behind the country's most discreet clearance service
Our story
Emergency House Clearance was founded after years of working in conventional house clearance and seeing the same gap repeated again and again: families, executors, social workers and landlords being turned away by ordinary clearance firms because the property was too hoarded, too contaminated, too distressing or simply too complicated. The standard response — "I'm sorry, we can't help" — was leaving people in some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives without anywhere to turn.
We started small, with a single van and a refusal to say no to anyone who genuinely needed help. Over the years we've grown into a national operation with teams across England, Wales and southern Scotland, but the founding principle has not changed: our job is to take a situation that feels overwhelming and turn it into something manageable, safely, lawfully and with absolute respect for the people involved.
What sets our work apart
Three things, mainly. First, training. Every member of our crew completes an internal induction that covers safeguarding, mental-health awareness, confidentiality, COSHH and the practical realities of dealing with bereaved or traumatised clients. Site supervisors hold IOSH Managing Safely qualifications. Trauma technicians are IICRC-certified for biohazard remediation. We invest in our people because we believe the way the work is done matters at least as much as the work itself.
Second, paperwork. We know that for executors, loss adjusters, environmental health officers and probate solicitors, the documentation we produce is as important as the clearance itself. Every job leaves with a written method statement, photographic inventory, full risk assessment, waste-transfer notes, decontamination certificates where relevant, and a clear single-page summary that satisfies any audit. Nothing is approximated; nothing is verbal.
Third, discretion. We have cleared properties on streets where neighbours have lived alongside the resident for fifty years, and we have done so without anyone realising what was being removed. Calm, low-key working, no signage on the property, no chatter on the doorstep. For trauma scenes we use night-time and early-morning attendance windows wherever practical, and where a client specifically requests an unmarked vehicle and plain workwear we can arrange this in advance.
Credentials & insurance
Public liability insurance to £5,000,000 with Hiscox. Employer's liability to £10,000,000. Upper-tier Waste Carrier, Broker and Dealer Licence registered with the Environment Agency (England), Natural Resources Wales and SEPA. CHAS-accredited contractor. IICRC-certified biohazard technicians on every trauma callout. We are happy to share certificates of currency on request, and we volunteer them automatically before any job begins.
For local authority and housing association procurement teams, we hold the necessary safeguarding policies, modern slavery statements and equality and diversity documentation, and our supervisors hold enhanced DBS clearance. We are routinely on framework agreements with social housing providers, NHS trust estates teams and probate solicitors' panels.
The kind of work we do best
Our reputation has been built on the cases that other firms decline. A flat in central London where the front door wouldn't open and access had to be made through a window. A bungalow in Yorkshire where the resident had not allowed a visitor inside for thirty-one years. A four-bedroom house in Hampshire where a deceased homeowner's possessions filled every room to chest height and a vulnerable adult was still living among it. A waterlogged terrace in South Wales after a sewer collapse over a Bank Holiday weekend.
We don't share photographs of any of these jobs publicly, and we never will. But the clients can, and increasingly do — through the reviews they leave on Google, Trustpilot and Checkatrade, and through the recommendations they pass to neighbours, friends and colleagues. Word-of-mouth has been our biggest source of new work for years, and we treat that as the highest possible compliment.
Our promise to you
We will arrive when we say we will. We will tell you the truth about what's possible, what isn't, and what it will cost. We will never increase a fixed quote without your written agreement. We will protect anything that looks like it might matter to you. And we will leave the property in a state you can hand over with complete confidence — to a buyer, to a tenant, to a beneficiary, or to a builder ready to begin reinstatement. That promise is the same whether the job is six hundred pounds or sixty thousand.
Get in touch
If you have a situation you'd like to discuss in confidence, you can reach a duty supervisor on 0800 494 7220 at any time of day or night. For non-urgent enquiries please email info@emergencyhouseclearance.co.uk or use our contact form. We look forward to helping.
