Contents are what people underestimate most. Not the hauling, which is a phone call, but the sorting, which is the part nobody can do for you and the part that stalls a sale for a year.
WHY CONTENTS STALL A SALE
Every buyer asks the same question first.
Will it be empty, and when. A house with contents in it is a house buyers cannot properly see, cannot photograph for a listing, and will want to negotiate about before they close. So a sale that could have been straightforward becomes a negotiation about furniture, and the family ends up clearing a house on somebody else’s timetable.
You are allowed to take this in a different order. Decide the sale first, and let the contents be one of its terms.
SORT FIRST, HAUL SECOND
Those are two different jobs and only one of them is hard.
Removing everything from a house is a truck and an afternoon. Deciding what happens to a house full of somebody’s life is not, and doing it under time pressure is how people throw away things they spend years wishing they had kept.
- Documents and paper first. Deeds, titles, insurance policies, tax records, bank and investment statements, military records, and anything with a name and an account number on it.
- Anything with money in it. Cash, in the places people actually hid it, which are rarely where anyone looks first.
- Precious metals, jewellery, and watches. Small, valuable, and easy to lose in a box of towels.
- Photographs, letters, and the things nobody can replace. These take the longest and are worth taking the time over.
- Keys, medication, and firearms. The last three are the ones that cause real trouble if they are left behind.
WHAT CAN BE LEFT, AND WHAT CANNOT
Most of it can be left, and that is a written term rather than a favour.
Furniture, appliances, tools, boxes, a garage full of whatever is in the garage, a shed, a hot tub nobody has used since 2011. All of that can be agreed as part of the purchase, with the cleanout as the buyer’s cost rather than yours.
What should never be left in a house you are handing over: medication, documents with personal information, anything with someone else’s name on it that matters, and pets. If there is an animal in the house, that is a conversation to have early, not on the day of the walkthrough.
IF THE FAMILY CANNOT AGREE ON WHAT TO KEEP
Take the time you need, and start the sale anyway.
The two are not in conflict. Terms can be written, agreed, and held while a family works out what to keep, and the deadline for emptying the house can be part of the agreement rather than a surprise.
What does not work is trying to sort a lifetime of belongings in a fortnight because a closing date got attached to it before anybody had decided anything.
QUESTIONS I GET ABOUT A HOUSE FULL OF BELONGINGS
Straight answers.
Do I have to empty the house before you look at it?
No. Come as it is. A house full of belongings is a normal house to walk through, and seeing it that way gives you a more honest answer about timing.
Can the cleanout be included in the price?
Sometimes, yes, and it is worth asking rather than assuming either way. Whatever is agreed has to be written down, so that neither side is relying on what was said at the kitchen table.
What should I do with the paperwork I find?
Anything with a name, an account number, or a policy on it is worth keeping for now and letting the estate’s attorney or an accountant decide. Shredding the wrong document is a harder mistake to undo than keeping a box.
Is it worth emptying the house before selling it instead?
It depends what is in it and who is paying. A clean, empty house is easier to market, but the cost of getting there is real, and it may be a cost you can leave inside the deal instead.
NEXT STEP
Start with the address.
Send the address and I will tell you plainly whether the property and the situation are a fit, and what I would need to know to put something in writing. If it is not a fit, I will say so.
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