Guide
What should you keep before clearing a house?
A focused list of the things that are easy to lose in a clearance and hard to recover afterwards.
Information checked:
Keep first, then clear
A house clearance goes wrong for families when the van leaves with something that was never meant to be waste. This page is only about what to set aside. The fuller sequence — access, photographs, hazardous materials — is in how to prepare for a house clearance.
You do not have to empty every cupboard of ordinary plates. You do have to search the places small, important objects actually sit.
Documents
Look for passports, driving licences, wills, deeds, certificates, bank and pension letters, insurance, and anything that looks official. Also keep address books and a year’s worth of financial paperwork until someone who understands the estate has seen it.
Drawers in bedrooms, tins in sideboards, files in lofts and “junk” boxes in garages are the usual places. If you are an executor, the longer probate checklist covers this in more depth. This is not legal advice.
Photographs and family records
Albums, loose prints, slides, hard drives labelled with names, and framed pictures. These rarely have a market price and almost always matter to someone. Put them in one room or one marked box.
Jewellery, watches and small valuables
Dressing tables, coat pockets, bathroom cabinets, sewing boxes and the backs of drawers. Small objects are the ones a clearance will not see if you have not already gathered them. They may or may not be valuable. That is a later question — see identifying items that may have resale value. Age is not a price.
Items gifted in a will, and things beneficiaries have asked for
If there is a will, read the specific gifts before anyone loads furniture. If beneficiaries have already said they want a table, a tool chest or a set of china, write it down and mark the pieces. Disputes after a clearance are harder than a list before one.
Medication
Do not leave medicines in a bathroom cabinet for a general load if they can be returned to a pharmacy. Tell us if they are still in the house so they are not swept up. This is ordinary caution, not a medical service.
Personal data and electronics
Computers, phones, tablets, external drives, cameras and filing cabinets. Decide whether they stay with the family, need wiping, or need a specialist. We will not assume a tower PC is ordinary residual waste.
Paper that is obviously junk — expired takeaway menus — can go. Diaries, notebooks and files with names on should be looked at.
Sentimental objects only the family can judge
A worn chair can be worthless and still be the one object someone wanted. If two people disagree, set the item aside. Bereavement clearance is built around that pause.
What you do not have to keep
You do not have to keep broken furniture, stained mattresses or kitchenware nobody wants, unless you simply are not ready. “Not ready” is a valid reason to delay a room. It is not a reason to pretend every object might be an antique.
When the keep pile is in one place, the rest of the house can be described for a quote.