Decluttering before you sell

The simplest approach is one room at a time, sorting as you go into a small number of groups rather than agonising over each item. Most people find five is enough: keep, sell, donate, recycle, and dispose. Boxes or bags labelled for each, and a rule that everything goes into one of them, keeps it moving.

Start with the easy wins, the loft, the garage, the spare room, where nothing is in daily use, and leave the kitchen and everyday cupboards until nearer the move. Be honest about the keep pile, too. If you are moving somewhere smaller, the things that will not fit are better sold or donated now than paid for twice, once to move and once to store.

It is easy to underestimate how much of a house clear-out is worth something to someone else, and selling the better items can fund part of the move. How you move each thing on mostly comes down to whether you want a bit of money for it or simply want it gone.

Electrical and electronic items, from a kettle to a washing machine, should not go in the general bin, which is what the crossed-out wheelie-bin symbol on them means, as Recycle Now explains. They are covered by separate rules designed to keep them out of landfill and recover the materials.

The easiest route when you are replacing something is the retailer. Under the WEEE regulations, shops must offer free take-back of your old item when you buy a like-for-like replacement, and larger stores must accept small electricals for free even without a purchase. Otherwise, household waste recycling centres take electricals separately.

Fridges and freezers are the exception that needs care. They contain refrigerant gases and have to be handled at a specialist facility, so they cannot go in a skip or the general waste. Recycling centres take them in a separate refrigeration area, and many councils and retailers will collect them. Anything still working is worth selling or donating first.

Part of clearing a house is deciding what not to take. A small, thoughtful handover leaves a good final impression and saves the buyer chasing you after completion.

The genuinely useful things to leave behind are the manuals and warranties for the boiler, appliances and anything fitted, the instructions for the alarm and heating, spare keys and fobs, and a quick note of the bin days and which bin is which. A little of the wall paint, labelled by room, is always appreciated for touch-ups. And anything you have agreed to leave as part of the sale, white goods, curtains or garden furniture, should match the fixtures and fittings form so there are no surprises on moving day.

Once the keep, sell, donate and recycle piles are dealt with, what remains is usually a mix of genuinely finished items that need clearing, often against a completion date. There are a few ways to do it. A skip suits a bigger clear-out where you can load it over a few days and have somewhere to put it. For smaller amounts, a few trips to the recycling centre may be enough, and if you cannot load a skip or have nowhere for one, a licensed waste carrier or a man-and-van clearance does the work for you, which our guide to skip hire for house clearance weighs up.

If you do use a skip and it needs to sit on a public road rather than your own driveway, you will need a permit from the council first. A skip entirely on your own drive does not need one. Whoever ends up clearing the waste, it is worth using a licensed carrier so you know it is disposed of properly.