House Clearance in Geneva

Why a house is quoted after a visit

For a flat, a few photos are enough for a fixed quote. For a house they almost never are, and the gap between estimate and reality consistently runs the same way: real volume exceeds what was described.

The reason is structural. A house has spaces a flat does not, and those spaces are precisely the ones people do not picture: garage, loft, basement, laundry, garden shed, plant room, sometimes a barn or workshop. Each holds years of accumulation, and each is bulky.

Across the villas we clear, the split is regularly as follows: the living rooms account for less than half of total volume. The rest sits in the garage — tools, tyres, bicycles, out-of-season garden furniture, DIY materials — in the loft and basement, and outside.

So a half-hour visit does three things a phone estimate cannot: measure real volume, identify what belongs in a particular waste channel, and check access. On that last point, a villa is not simpler than a flat: a narrow private lane, a gate, a gravel drive that will not take a loaded lorry, a steep slope. We would rather see that beforehand than block a vehicle on a bend.

Garage, loft and outbuildings: more than half the volume

The garage, loft and outbuildings option adds CHF 400 to the calculation base, taking a 50 m³ clearance to CHF 2'100. On a villa, this line is almost never optional in practice.

The garage is the champion of hidden volume. It rarely holds just a car: power and hand tools, a workbench, winter tyres, bicycles and trailers, garden furniture stored for the season, leftover building materials, part-used paint, ladders, pool equipment. A well-filled double garage alone commonly represents 15 to 25 m³.

The loft and basement hold something different: archives, keepsakes, boxes from previous moves, furniture replaced but kept, sometimes the belongings of children now grown up. The volume is significant but the difficulty lies elsewhere — this is the content that needs the most sorting, because it mixes what should be thrown out with what matters.

Outbuildings, finally, are the great omission from quotes: garden shed, pool house, outdoor laundry, workshop, converted barn. We ask about them explicitly during the visit, opening every door, because experience shows nobody mentions them spontaneously.

Green waste and exteriors

The green waste and exteriors option adds CHF 300 to the calculation base, taking a 50 m³ clearance to CHF 2'000. It exists because plant waste follows a channel distinct from everything else, and because outdoor volume is real.

What this line covers: accumulated prunings and branches, a compost heap to be removed, garden soil and rubble, an old woodpile, but also end-of-life outdoor furniture, a dismantled pergola, a children's playhouse, an above-ground pool, a trampoline, a lightweight masonry barbecue.

Plant waste does not mix with bulky waste: it is compostable and follows its own channel. Mixing them is both poor environmental practice and a processing surcharge, because a mixed load is treated at the rate of the most demanding stream. That is the technical reason for separating them, not a pretext for one more invoice line.

A frequent case at Geneva villas: the pile of soil or rubble left after building work. These are inert materials with their own channel and a very high weight — a few cubic metres of rubble weighs several tonnes. We quote them separately after seeing them, because on this type of material weight matters more than volume.

Hazardous waste: what the licensed channel covers

The hazardous waste option adds CHF 350 to the calculation base, taking a 50 m³ clearance to CHF 2'050. It concerns products a house accumulates far more of than a flat.

What we take under this heading: paints, varnishes and solvents, wood treatment products, weedkillers and plant protection products, pool chemicals, engine and chain oil, antifreeze, batteries and accumulators, batteries in quantity, aerosol cans, light bulbs and fluorescent tubes. These cannot go with bulky waste and each has its own channel.

What this option does not cover, and it is important not to confuse the two: building materials that may contain asbestos. That is not ordinary hazardous waste but a regulated subject in its own right, handled by specifically authorised companies.

Our position on this is firm. We do not carry out asbestos surveys and we do not remove any suspect material. In buildings from before the 1990s, some floor coverings, tile adhesives, fibre-cement sheets, insulation and duct lagging may contain it, and only a survey by a specialist can settle the question. If we see a doubtful element we flag it, leave it in place and clear around it. That is not commercial caution: it is the only responsible way to proceed, and a provider who offers to rip out an old floor without asking the question should worry you.

What can be resold, donated or reused

In a house the reusable share is markedly larger than in a flat, and that is worth exploiting before sending everything to a waste channel. Sorting happens on site, in three categories.

Antique and quality furniture is the first. A solid wardrobe, a farmhouse table, an antique chest of drawers, wooden chairs, a bookcase: these have real value on the second-hand market and shredding them would be absurd. If you have such pieces, tell us before the clearance: depending on the items there are buyers, and a valuation is worth obtaining independently of us.

Tools and garden equipment come next. A workbench, a working mower, power tools, a ladder, DIY equipment in working order: these resell or find a home easily. Reuse is almost always possible here and it reduces the volume to remove, and therefore the cost.

Finally, working appliances and ordinary furniture go to Geneva reuse organisations. We point out what clearly belongs in that channel at the sorting stage.

An honest remark about what people think has value: ordinary crockery, paperback books, flat-pack furniture, older televisions and worn clothing do not, even in apparently good condition. Many families lose time trying to sell what no longer sells. We would rather say so than let you hold up a clearance for three weeks over it.

Clearance before a property sale

A significant number of our house clearances form part of a sale, and the logic differs from an end of tenancy. There is no managing agent and no rental deposit, but there is a deed and a buyer.

The usual obligation is to hand over the property clear of all furniture and clutter on the date agreed in the deed. That includes what people forget: the garage, the loft, the basement, the garden shed, the woodpile, the old mower at the back of the garage. A property handed over with belongings left behind can create a dispute at completion, and it is an uncomfortable dispute because the buyer has immediate leverage.

There is also a commercial aspect beforehand. An empty house shows better than a cluttered one: the volumes read clearly, light moves through, the buyer can picture themselves there. On properties we clear before they go on the market, agents regularly tell us the effect on viewings is obvious. We do not promise an effect on price, which would be dishonest, but the effect on viewing quality is real.

One scheduling point specific to sales: the date is set by the deed and it does not move. We recommend arranging the clearance at least a week beforehand, with margin, rather than the day before. On a house the chance of some element taking an extra half-day is high — a garage fuller than expected, access requiring a shuttle, a doubtful material needing a decision.

Access: the real limiting factor at a villa

Contrary to expectation, access to a villa is often more constrained than to an apartment building. There are no stairs, but there is the lane.

Three configurations come up constantly in the canton. The narrow private lane, with a tight bend or a gate too narrow for a lorry — common in Cologny, Vandœuvres, Chêne-Bougeries, Collonge-Bellerive. The gravel or freshly laid paved drive, which a loaded heavy vehicle will certainly damage. And the steep slope, which makes safe loading impossible in some positions.

The usual solution is a shuttle: a smaller vehicle runs back and forth between the house and the lorry parked further away. It is slower, it appears in the quote, and it is the only clean way to proceed. The alternative — putting a twenty-tonne lorry on a drive that cannot take it — creates damage that would be at our expense, so we do not do it.

Two details that each cost an hour when forgotten: the height of the gate or a low branch over the drive, and access to distant outbuildings, which may mean carrying items thirty or fifty metres. We survey those during the visit, and it is one of the reasons we visit.

How to compare three house clearance quotes

Gaps between house clearance quotes often exceed a thousand francs, and they almost never come from the per-cubic-metre rate. They come from scope and from what is not written down.

Six questions are enough to put three quotes on the same footing. Does the volume allowed for cover the garage, loft, basement and outbuildings, or only the living rooms? Is green waste included, and treated in its own channel? Is hazardous waste — paints, pool chemicals, oils, batteries — taken, and to which channel? Has access been checked on site, including lane width and surface type?

Fifth question: what happens if real volume exceeds the estimate? A quote produced after a visit should hold. A quote produced over the phone generally ends with an adjustment announced once the team is already there.

Sixth question, and this is the one that separates providers most: what does the quote say about a material that may contain asbestos? The right answer is 'we flag it, leave it in place and clear around it'. A provider offering to remove it without a survey is taking a risk that is not theirs to take — and that will become yours.

Finally, ask for a disposal certificate. In a sale as in an estate, being able to demonstrate that waste went to the correct channels is useful, and it is not something to request after the fact.

Options and separate channels

The hazardous waste option does NOT cover asbestos, which is a regulated matter handled by specifically authorised companies. A provider offering to rip out an old floor covering without a survey is taking a risk that will become yours.