A practical checklist of what to keep when clearing a parent's house after a death — documents, phones, V5s, keys, medals and photographs — from 17+ years of bereavement clearances.
The short answer
Keep anything needed to administer the estate, anything that proves identity or ownership, and anything irreplaceable. After 17+ years of bereavement clearances, these are the items we set aside as standard because families nearly always need them later.
Paperwork for the estate
- Wills and legal papers
- Bank, building society, pension and premium bond letters
- Insurance policies and title deeds
- Utility bills and council tax letters
- V5 vehicle documents
Personal and irreplaceable items
- Mobile phones, tablets and laptops
- Photo albums, loose photographs and letters
- Keys — house, car, garage, safes and sheds
- Military medals and service records
- Jewellery and sentimental items
Where to look
Important things are rarely in one place. Check inside books, coat pockets, handbags, under mattresses, kitchen drawers, lofts and garages. In hoarding clearances we search room by room for exactly this reason.
If you cannot face going in
Many families sweep through first, but when the property or the circumstances mean you do not want to enter, we set these items aside for you and hand them to the executor. Read more about the keepsakes we set aside.
Vehicles and V5 documents
If a car, motorbike or caravan is part of the estate, the V5 logbook, service history and any spare keys should be kept with the estate's paperwork rather than left in the vehicle. These are set aside as standard whenever we come across them, along with garage and shed keys, which are easy to mislay during a busy clearance day.
A note on jointly owned items
Where siblings or other family members are dividing belongings between themselves, it is worth agreeing who wants what before the clearance date, since once items leave the property under a general clearance instruction they cannot usually be recovered. We are glad to hold a short list of named items to one side until a decision is reached, rather than removing everything on the day.
Digital accounts and devices
Phones, tablets and laptops are kept aside as standard, partly because they often hold photographs and messages that cannot be replaced, and partly because they may be needed to access online accounts, subscriptions or banking apps during probate. We do not attempt to access devices ourselves; we simply make sure they are not lost, damaged or disposed of during the clearance.
Items that are easy to overlook
Beyond the obvious documents and keepsakes, families often forget items that only matter later: spare keys to a storage unit or safe deposit box, membership cards for clubs or associations, prescription details for ongoing medical conditions that might affect an estate claim, and handwritten notes tucked into the backs of frames or books. We have found important paperwork inside shoe boxes, tucked behind wardrobes, and folded inside old greetings cards more times than we can count.
Sentimental items versus estate items
It helps to think about keepsakes in two categories. The first is anything the estate needs for legal or financial reasons — wills, bank letters, insurance documents, the V5 for a car. The second is anything that matters to the family personally but has no bearing on probate — photographs, letters, medals, jewellery and small personal effects. Both categories are treated the same way during a clearance: set aside, bagged, labelled and never disposed of without agreement. Our detailed guide to keepsakes and sentimental items we set aside covers this in full.
When the family cannot face sorting through everything
It is entirely normal not to want to go through a parent's belongings room by room. Where that is the case, we do the sorting on your behalf, setting items aside as we go and photographing anything that looks as though it might matter before asking you about it. This applies equally during a bereavement house clearance and during more complex situations such as a hoarding clearance, where valuables and documents can be buried much deeper in the property.
A simple approach that works
If you only have time for one pass through the property yourself, focus on drawers, wardrobes, bedside tables and anywhere paperwork is likely to be filed, then leave the rest to us. We will still check loft spaces, garages and sheds as a matter of routine, because valuables and documents turn up in all of these places more often than people expect.
Frequently asked questions
What if we are not sure whether something is valuable?
We photograph anything that looks as though it might have value and report it to you or the executor before any decision is made. We do not provide formal valuation or auction services.
Can you set keepsakes aside even if we don't want to enter the property?
Yes. We routinely do this for families who cannot or do not wish to go inside, and we hand the items over separately once the clearance is complete.
Wolverhampton Private Clearances is the specialist clearance division of Shropshire Expert Cleaners LTD, with 17+ years of specialist clearance and decontamination experience, providing house clearances, bereavement and probate clearances, after-death clearances, biohazardous clearances and hoarder clearances across Wolverhampton, Telford, Shrewsbury and Stafford. Call 0800 193 3699 at any hour.