House clearance in Blackrock when the house is sold with some contents included
When a house is sold with some of its contents included, the clearance is run from a list rather than from the rooms. The curtains, blinds, appliances and pieces of furniture the buyer is getting stay exactly where they are, marked so a crew cannot mistake them, and everything else leaves without a mark on what remains. Then you walk the empty house with the agent before the closing date, with time in hand to put right anything that is wrong.
This guide is for anyone selling in Blackrock, where a house that has been in one family for fifty or sixty years, on the avenues or in the Victorian terraces around the village, often goes to a buyer who wants the made-to-measure curtains, the integrated appliances and sometimes a piece or two of furniture left behind. Our house clearance in Blackrock page covers access and parking, and our guide to clearing a Tallaght house to a sale deadline covers the timetable of a sale. This guide is about the contents list and how to clear a house around it. It is general practical guidance, not legal advice; your solicitor is the person to ask about what the contract requires.
Why “some contents included” changes the job
An ordinary house clearance has one instruction: empty it. A sale with contents included has two, and they pull against each other. Everything the buyer is not getting has to be gone by the closing date, and everything the buyer is getting has to be there, undamaged and where it was when they viewed.
Take out something that was on the list and your solicitor has a problem to sort out on closing day. Leave behind a wardrobe of clothes or a shed full of tins and the buyer’s solicitor may raise that too. Neither is hard to avoid if the list is read before the clearance rather than after it.
Start with the list, not with the rooms
The contents that go with the house are agreed in writing between the two solicitors as part of the sale, so ask yours for a copy before you book anything. The agent’s brochure may list what is included too, but the contract is what counts.
Read the list room by room and turn every vague line into a decision. “Kitchen appliances” may or may not mean the microwave and the freezer in the garage. “Curtains” may or may not include the poles and pelmets. “Garden furniture” says nothing about the mower or the tools in the shed. Send your questions to the solicitor together, a few weeks before the clearance date. Once a crew has loaded the van, nothing comes back.
What buyers typically ask to be left
- Made-to-measure curtains, blinds, poles and pelmets, which rarely fit another house.
- Light fittings and wall lights that suit the rooms.
- Integrated appliances, the cooker and often the washing machine and the dishwasher.
- Fitted wardrobes and anything else fixed to a wall, including mirrors and shelving.
- Carpets and underlay in good condition.
- The garden shed, sometimes with the mower and the tools, and the garden furniture and pots.
- Occasionally one piece that suits the room it stands in: a dining table, a piano, a wardrobe on a landing it would not leave in one piece.
What buyers almost never want
Nobody buying a house wants the contents of its presses and drawers, the mattresses, the worn sofa, the old television, the boxes in the attic, the tins in the shed or the bags the family filled and never got round to taking. If a buyer said at a viewing that they would “take the lot”, that is not an instruction until it is written into the sale; ask your solicitor to confirm it, and otherwise clear it.
Marking what stays so nothing goes by mistake
The kept items stay where they are, the opposite of the keep room our Churchtown bereavement guide describes for a family collecting furniture. Here the kept items are spread through the house, and the job is to make each one unmistakable.
- Tape. A strip of coloured tape on every kept piece, somewhere the buyer will not see a mark: the back of a chair leg, inside a wardrobe door, the underside of a table.
- A list on the counter. One page, room by room, listing what stays, left on the kitchen counter with a pen. The crew works from it and ticks it.
- Photographs. A photo of each kept item where it stands, taken before the day. It records what was agreed and the condition it was in.
- The walk-through. Ten minutes at the start of the day with the crew, room by room, pointing at each taped item. If you are not there, the key holder does it, or you do it on a video call.
The small things that belong with the kept items, the appliance manuals, spare keys, remote controls and the alarm fob, go into one labelled drawer that the crew is told to leave alone.
Clearing around the kept items without marking them
A crew that clears houses every week is used to working around things that stay. The difference on a contents-included sale is how many there are and how much they matter to the buyer.
Kept furniture is moved to the middle of the room or into a room already cleared, covered with blankets, and moved back at the end. Curtains are tied back while the room behind them is worked, and blinds go to the top. Where carpets are staying, sheeting goes down in the hall, on the stairs and on the landing, where the corner of a wardrobe does its damage.
A kept wardrobe or chest of drawers is emptied and left. Kept appliances are not moved, unplugged or disconnected; the presses around them are emptied and nothing else in the kitchen that is on the list is touched. If a piece has to be moved to get something else out, it goes back where it stood.
What to send for a quote
Send a photo of each room from the doorway, with the kept items visible, and the contents list or a short note of what stays in each room, to 085 202 1222 on WhatsApp with the Eircode, or use the quote form. We quote a fixed written price for what is leaving, and the kept items are simply not in it. Nothing is added on the day; if the list changes beforehand, send the change and we adjust the price before the crew arrives.
The attic, the garage and the shed
A contents list almost never mentions what is in the attic, the garage or the shed, and buyers almost never want it. The shed itself may be included; its contents are not, unless the list says so. The buyer’s surveyor will have opened the attic hatch, and the buyer expects it empty.
In the larger Blackrock houses the garage and the outbuildings have often held one family’s things for fifty years, and they are the part of the quote that goes wrong when they are left out of the photos, so send one photo from each door and one from inside looking back. Paint, solvents, oils, fuel, chemicals, batteries and gas cylinders are not carried on any of our jobs; take them to a civic amenity site or a hazardous waste collection and we clear the rest. Our Knocklyon guide covers the garage and attic of a family house in more detail.
The final walk-through with the agent
Walk the house with the agent, in person or on a video call, the day after the clearance rather than on closing day, so there is time to put something right. Check the contents list twice over: once for what should be there, and once for what should not.
- Every listed item present, in its place, and in the condition it was in when the sale was agreed.
- Every press, drawer, wardrobe and the hot press empty, the attic hatch opened and checked, the shed and garage empty, the garden clear of pots and bags that were not on the list.
- Curtains hung, blinds working, light fittings and bulbs in place.
- A fridge or freezer that is staying emptied, and either running or switched off with the door open, as agreed with the buyer.
- Every key gathered, for the doors, the windows, the shed, the side gate and the garage, and the alarm code or the alarm switched off, ready for the solicitor or the agent.
If you were not at the clearance, we send photographs of every room as it is left, and the agent can walk the house against those. The crew sweeps the floors; a sweep is not a clean, and if the house is to be handed over cleaned, that is a separate job for a cleaning company booked for after the clearance.
Timing before the closing
Work backwards from the closing date your solicitor gives you.
- Three to four weeks before: ask the solicitor for the contents list and send your questions about it. Decide which family items are coming out, and get them out.
- Two to three weeks before: send the photos and the list and book the clearance date.
- The week before closing: the clearance, on a weekday between 8am and 5pm or a Saturday morning until 2pm.
- The day after: the walk-through with the agent, and any fixes.
- Closing day: keys to the solicitor or the agent, and the house as the list describes it.
If the closing date moves, tell us as soon as you hear and the clearance moves with it. Blackrock is on the DART, which suits family members travelling out from the city or in from abroad to meet the crew without a car, and we agree a start time around the trains.
Blackrock in brief
In the village and the terraces around Idrone Terrace and Newtown Avenue there is no off-street parking, so the van stands at the nearest legal spot and the crew carries, and an early start beats the weekend market traffic. On the avenues the drive is often long, gravelled and gated, so the van reverses in and loads from the front step, with shed and garage contents brought round by the side gate. Mention the road when you send photos.
What customers say
This is a review from a real customer, quoted exactly as it was written.
I recently used JUNKREMOVAL.IE to clear out my five-storey house in Kildare Town, which was filled with accumulated clutter. Ciprian and his team provided a fair quote, arrived on schedule, completed the job within the estimated time, and left the house completely empty and vacuumed. I highly recommend their services.
John, Kildare
Frequently asked questions
The contract says the kitchen appliances are included. Does that cover the microwave and the kettle as well?
Ask your solicitor rather than assume, because it depends on how the list was written. Lists usually name the integrated appliances, the cooker, the fridge and the washing machine, and small counter-top appliances are often not mentioned at all. Until you have the answer, leave the item where it is; the crew can take it on the day if the answer comes back before then.
How do you protect a dining table that is staying while the rest of the room is cleared around it?
It is covered with blankets and moved to the middle of the room, or into a room that has already been cleared, and moved back at the end. Chairs that are staying are stacked and covered beside it. Your photograph of the table before the day tells us exactly where it stood, and that is where it is left.
The buyer wants the mower and the garden tools but not the rest of what is in the shed. How do we separate them?
Put the kept tools together in one corner of the shed with a strip of tape across the handles, or in the garage, and point them out at the walk-through. Everything else in the shed is loaded. Check the mower for fuel first, because a mower with fuel in it could not come with us even if it were going.
Should we photograph the kept items before the clearance starts?
Yes, every one, in place and in daylight, including close-ups of any marks already on them. The photographs record what was agreed and the condition it was in, which protects you at the walk-through and at closing. They also tell the crew where a piece belongs if it has to be moved to get something else out.
Who needs to be at the house on the day: me, the agent or the solicitor?
You or a key holder for the first ten minutes, to walk the crew round the taped items, and nobody else. The agent is not needed until the walk-through afterwards, and the solicitor is never needed at the house. If nobody can attend, the walk-through happens by video call and the key is left with a neighbour or the agent.
The buyer has changed their mind and no longer wants the wardrobes they asked for. Can you take them?
Yes, if we hear before the day, when they are added to the quote and the van is planned for them. If the news arrives on the morning, the crew takes them if the load allows and otherwise books a return visit. Ask your solicitor to confirm the change in writing before anything that was on the list is moved.
Does a house with a lot of contents staying cost less to clear than a full one?
Usually a little less, because the price is for what leaves, by volume, weight and access. It is rarely as much less as people expect, because the pieces buyers keep tend to be light or fixed, such as curtains, blinds and fittings, while the mattresses, wardrobes, sofas and the attic that always go are the bulk of the load.
What do we do with the appliance manuals, spare keys and remote controls for the things that stay?
Put them in one kitchen drawer or a large envelope on the counter, labelled for the buyer, and tell the crew which it is at the walk-through. That drawer is the one place in the house the crew leaves untouched. Add the alarm instructions, the boiler manual and the bin collection day while you are at it, because buyers ask for them.
The fridge is staying for the buyer but it is still full. Will you empty it?
Food is best cleared by the family the day before, bagged and left with the rubbish for us to take. Ask the buyer, through the agent, whether they want the fridge left running or switched off with the door open, because the two are handed over differently. We do not unplug or move an appliance that is staying.
We live abroad and cannot be in Blackrock for the walk-through. Can the agent do it with your photos?
Yes. We photograph every room, the attic, the garage and the shed as we leave, with the kept items in place, and send them to you on WhatsApp. Forward them to the agent and arrange for them to walk the house against the contents list the same week. You then have a record of the condition of the house from the day it was emptied.
Our closing date has moved a week later. Will the clearance date move too?
Tell us as soon as you hear and we rebook. A later closing is easier than an earlier one, because there is more room in the diary and the house can simply sit a week longer. If the date comes forward, say so straight away; we work Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm and Saturdays until 2pm.
Next step
Send a photo of each room with the kept items visible, the attic, the garage and the shed, and the contents list, to 085 202 1222 on WhatsApp with the Eircode, or request a free quote online. Our house clearance page explains the service, and the furniture removal page covers the case where only a few pieces are leaving and the rest of the house is staying with the buyer.
