Before anything moves

  • Confirm your authority to deal with contents with the estate's solicitor, timing often depends on the grant of probate, and that timetable belongs to the court, not the calendar you'd prefer.
  • Secure the house: keys accounted for, insurance on the dwelling confirmed and told the house is unoccupied, valuables photographed where they stand.
  • Walk the house once with a notebook, not a bin bag. Nothing leaves in week one; early haste is what families remember.
  • Ask beneficiaries for their lists in writing, by a date. Vague "I'd love a few things" becomes conflict later; a written list becomes a delivery run.

Decisions that need professionals

  • Anything possibly valuable, art, jewellery, instruments, cellars, gets an appraiser before it gets a carton. Your remover shouldn't value things, and shouldn't offer to.
  • Documents: wills, deeds, certificates and tax papers travel with you personally, never in the general load.
  • Agree with the agent (if the house is selling) which furniture stays for styling, and until when. It changes what the first clearance run takes.

Booking the clearance

  • Choose a remover who'll inventory as they pack, numbered cartons, listed rooms, and give you the record. If they look puzzled by the request, keep looking.
  • Ask how beneficiary deliveries are handled, local drops in the same run save the estate real money.
  • Ask what happens to the donation load, named charity dock or "it gets sorted"? You want the first answer, in writing.
  • If probate timing is uncertain, ask about storage under inventory, so the house can be presented for sale while contents wait properly.
  • Get the access question answered before the quote: for a Vaucluse house, the drive, the stairs and where the truck stands decide the day. (Our Access Survey answers it in five minutes, whoever you end up booking.)

On the day, and after

  • One decision-maker on site, with your phone number taped inside the front door for the crew.
  • Meters photographed, keys collected from the crew at the end, house locked and the solicitor told the clearance date for the file.
  • Inventory, delivery receipts and donation records into the estate file the same week, future-you will be grateful.

Written as practical moving guidance, not legal advice; the estate's solicitor is the authority on what may move and when.

Notes + sources

  1. Probate and administration in NSW are matters for the Supreme Court of NSW; your solicitor drives that timetable.
  2. Consumer guidance on engaging removalists: NSW Fair Trading.