A void costs money every day it stays a void. That is the whole job in one sentence. Whether you are a housing officer with a turnaround target, a letting agent holding keys for a landlord who lives up country, or someone who has inherited a property in Camborne that has stood empty for two years, the clearance is usually the thing standing between an empty property and a let or a sale. We clear voids across Cornwall from our base in Hayle, and this is how we go about them.
A void is not the same job as a house clearance
On a normal house clearance there is a family involved. Somebody wants the photographs kept, the jewellery looked at, the desk going to a nephew in Truro. It is careful work and it takes the time it takes.
A void is different. Usually nobody wants anything. What the property needs is to be emptied, swept, documented and handed back, in as few days as possible, with paperwork that stands up if anyone asks questions later. The skill is not sorting, it is speed and evidence.
That said, we do not simply tip the lot, and we will say so upfront. We still sort as we load, because around two thirds of what we clear stays out of landfill across our jobs, and that is as true on a void as anywhere else. It also keeps the disposal bill down, which comes back to you in the price.
What we do before anyone lifts anything
We photograph the property room by room on arrival, before a single item moves. Every void job gets this, whether you ask for it or not.
It matters for three reasons. If there is a deposit dispute running, you have a dated record of how the property was left. If the outgoing tenant later says something of value was in there, you have a picture of what was actually present. And if you are writing up a recharge, you have something to attach to it rather than a description from memory.
We photograph again when the property is empty. Same rooms, same angles. You can see the kind of thing we mean on our before and after page.
Abandoned goods, and the bit people get wrong
This is where void clearances go wrong for landlords, and it is worth being blunt. A tenant's belongings left in a property do not automatically become yours to throw away the moment the tenancy ends. There is a process to follow, and a clearance company turning up and emptying the place does not replace it.
We are not solicitors and will not pretend to be. What we will do is tell you plainly, before we book the job, if what you are describing sounds like abandoned goods rather than rubbish, and suggest you take advice first. It is a short conversation that has saved our customers real grief. Plenty of firms will not have it with you, because it costs them a booking.
Where it is genuinely a clearance, we get on with it.
What comes out of a typical Cornwall void
Voids have a pattern, and after a few hundred of them you stop being surprised:
- Beds and mattresses in every bedroom. These are almost always the biggest single line in the disposal cost, for reasons we have written about separately.
- A fridge freezer that has been switched off for months and needs handling carefully. Electricals go through the WEEE route, not the general load.
- Flat pack furniture that has been moved once too often and will not survive being moved again.
- Bags. Sometimes dozens. Clothes, bedding, kitchen contents, and a fair proportion that is simply household waste.
- A garden or yard that has had six months of nothing done to it. That is its own job, and better raised at quote stage than on the day.
Where a property has stood empty through a Cornish winter, add damp. Soft furnishings that have sat in an unheated house near the coast since October are usually finished, and honest sorting means saying so rather than bagging them for a charity that will only skip them.
Turnaround
What actually determines when a void is back on the market is rarely the clearing itself. It is how long it takes to get somebody to come and look at it in the first place.
So we quote fast. Send photographs or a floor plan and we will come back to you with an indication quickly. For anything substantial we would still rather come and see it, because a quote from photographs is a guess and a guess helps nobody, but for a standard two bed flat we can often work from pictures.
If you manage a portfolio, it is worth setting up a standing arrangement rather than ringing round each time. Several agents across Cornwall simply send us the keys.
The paperwork you should insist on
Ask any clearance company for two things before they take anything away.
- Their waste carrier registration. Anyone transporting waste as a business in England must be registered with the Environment Agency. Ask for the number and check it on the public register. It takes a minute.
- A waste transfer note. You have a duty of care over waste produced at your property, and it does not end when somebody else's van pulls off the drive. If that load turns up fly-tipped in a lane outside Redruth, the paper trail is what protects you.
We issue a waste transfer note on every job as standard. If a quote comes in noticeably cheaper than everyone else's and the company goes vague on either of those two points, you have learned something useful about why it was cheaper.
Cornwall, and getting a price
We cover the whole county and into Devon, from Penzance and Hayle through Truro, Falmouth, Newquay and Bodmin and up to Bude and Launceston. Voids in the far west and on the north coast are routine for us. If the property is between tenants rather than standing empty long term, our end of tenancy clearance page covers that side of it.
Items of real value that come out of a property go through our own auctions and resale channels, and that value comes off your clearance cost rather than into our pocket. On voids there is often nothing of value at all, and we will tell you that too.
If you have a property standing empty in Cornwall, call 07843 930927 or email info@lanorahouse.com. We will come and look, and you get a clear written price with no obligation.