“Not everyone has a Picasso on the wall, it’s about normal people with modest possessions doing something incredible.”

Award-winning Shah Alam is co-founder of ILM Corporate Partner Clearanceco – a business that does far more than just “empty properties”. It helps charities, solicitors and probate professionals squeeze every bit of value (and dignity) out of an estate, while keeping everything ethical, transparent and sane.

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Shah’s love for the legacy world began during a six-year stint at Macmillan Cancer Support, where he managed gifts in Wills and quietly noticed a big, slightly awkward gap in how estates were being handled.

Here’s his story.

“My parents wanted a lawyer. They got a legacy nerd instead.”

“My parents wanted me to be a lawyer,” Shah laughs. “But by the time I’d finished my degree, I knew it wasn’t for me.”

Instead, he joined the legacy team at Macmillan as an assistant and worked his way up until he was managing his own caseload. Along the way, he got stuck into community engagement too – including supporting Macmillan Coffee Mornings within the Muslim community.

“I really enjoyed talking to people,” he says. “You realise quickly that legacies aren’t abstract numbers – they’re people’s lives, values and stories.”

But there was a recurring niggle.

“I started to realise that by the time we received estate accounts, it was often too late to challenge some of the figures. If a solicitor told us a house clearance had cost X and we thought that was too high… well, the van had already driven off.”

Spotting the gap: “A man in a van” is not a strategy

Like every good legacy professional, Shah wanted to maximise value for the estate, pushing back on house offers, sourcing extra reports, exploring planning permission where it made sense.

“The more I dug around, the more I could see there was a natural gap for a trusted, ethical house clearance business,” he says.

House clearance is, at present, an unregulated sector. No best practice, no standards, and very little transparency.

“A man in a van can be tasked with taking everything away and you have no control over the process or what happens to the items. You’re putting your trust in someone you know nothing about – who could be selling things off, or even fly-tipping.”

And in all the cases Shah handled?

“At no point did a clearance company ever come back and say, ‘We found something valuable,’ or even hand over a £10 note from a coat pocket. That really stuck with me.”

Enter Clearanceco

After leaving Macmillan, Shah became involved in other charity projects, and that’s when his path crossed with his now business partner, Shaynul Khan.

“Shaynul is a management consultant by profession, and he’s been in the charity world for around 30 years. He’s a charity founder and trustee of some truly groundbreaking projects.”

The pair decided to marry Shaynul’s charity and leadership experience with Shah’s legacy and probate insight.

“And that’s how Clearanceco was born.”

They built the business from the ground up and now employ a team of 18, managing house clearances nationwide. The head office is in London, but they have local teams across the country – including Scotland – so they can respond quickly and cost-effectively.

Trust first, trucks second

“For us, it’s all about trust, commitment and understanding how the legacy sector actually works,” Shah says. “That includes charities, private client solicitors, probate professionals, lay executors and bereaved families.”

The emphasis is firmly on the human side.

“We’re very conscious that, behind every instruction, there’s someone who has lost a loved one. We’re going into their home, their private space, and dealing with their belongings. So we take an empathetic approach and try to honour the wishes and sensitivities of the family and the estate.”

Shah had known about ILM from his Macmillan days and always wanted to work with them.

“Becoming an ILM Corporate Partner was a really proud moment,” he says. “Particularly as we’re the only partner operating specifically in the house clearance space.”

The partnership has been instrumental in their growth.

“We created a strong offer for ILM members, and work has steadily flowed our way. It’s been brilliant to be able to help so many charities in quite a practical, tangible way.”

Clearanceco has only been operating for around 18 months, but their services continue to evolve.

What actually happens when Clearanceco gets involved?

When a charity or solicitor instructs them, one of the team visits the property (or, if that’s not possible, works from photos) and:

· Takes comprehensive photos of the property

· Identifies any urgent works: shutting off utilities, draining down pipes, taking meter readings, securing doors and windows, checking for immediate maintenance issues

· Spots any obvious chattels of value and starts thinking about the best routes to sell, donate or dispose of items

Unwanted items can be anything from a car to furniture, clothing or a suspicious number of tins of paint in the shed.

Clearanceco provides a no-obligation quote. If they’re instructed, they get to work. At the end they also provide detailed Post Clearance Reports, detailing the project along with any issues identifies for the executors to consider.

House clearance is the core, but they also coordinate with a network of trusted professionals – locksmiths, roofers, estate agents and more.

“And crucially,” Shah says, “we never put a markup on their fees. What they charge is what you pay. We’re not in the business of quietly inflating invoices.”

Saving estates money (and paralegals’ sanity)

Shah is very aware of how much solicitor involvement can cost.

“If a law firm sends a legal representative to deal with a property, it can easily take 7–10 hours addressing security, document searches, drain-downs” he says. “You’re looking at costs in the region of £800–£1,400.”

Clearanceco steps in to remove the non-legal tasks so legal people can focus on, well, legal things.

Take paperwork. They offer a document recovery service where they sort through bills, council letters, flyers and the general paper mountain to identify what needs action.

Looking for value – financial and sentimental

Clearanceco teams are trained to keep an eye out for valuables and sentimental items: jewellery, photographs, memorabilia.

“We set those aside and check in with the solicitor or charity,” Shah says. “Sometimes we’re asked to realise the value, and that’s where our contacts come in.”

They work with experts and auction houses to get the best possible prices.

In one property, they discovered a substantial collection of Royal Mint commemorative coins. The original purchase value was north of £50,000 – but because they were mass-produced, dealers weren’t exactly falling over themselves.

“Most dealers offered between £5,000 and £7,000,” Shah recalls. “But we kept going, and eventually we secured £19,930. It was a lovely feeling to put that back into the estate.”

Not everything has big financial value, of course. Sometimes the value is more emotional or community-based.

“Once, we ended up caring for thousands of miniature trains,” he laughs. “They were going to a community organisation that was the beneficiary. There wasn’t huge monetary value, and we didn’t charge for the temporary storage, it just felt like the right thing to do.”

They’re also used to working to tight deadlines. In one local authority case, a property needed clearing urgently. Clearanceco worked with the solicitor and the deceased’s sister, cleared the flat quickly, and raised an additional £1,300 for the charity from the sale of modestly valued chattels.

Modest possessions, incredible generosity

“The reality is that most people don’t have a Picasso on the wall or a million-pound estate,” Shah says.

“The heart of legacy giving is about normal people with modest possessions doing something incredible. They’ve made this amazing gesture, and we have the privilege of going through a lifetime’s worth of belongings and trying to realise their value, big or small.”

Often, the team gets to know the deceased through their possessions – their hobbies, their quirks, their travels.

“There’s always a story,” Shah says. “It’s one of the unexpectedly moving parts of the job.”

Rather than chasing only the rare big-ticket item, Clearanceco is happy working on “normal” estates.

“If we can consistently make an extra £200–£300 for a charity across many estates, the numbers add up. It’s not always glamorous, but it’s meaningful.”

They also pride themselves on solving “weird and wonderful” probate problems – items that nobody quite knows what to do with until Clearanceco steps in.

“If we find valuable chattels and amazing items, that’s brilliant,” Shah says. “But even if all we’ve done is help a charity save £800–£1,400 on solicitor fees, that’s still a really good outcome.”

Sustainability: doing the right thing, properly

On top of everything else, sustainability is built into how Clearanceco works.

“When we clear a house, our technicians sort through everything and make sure items are disposed of via the correct waste streams,” Shah explains.

That means:

· Chemicals and household cleaners go to appropriate facilities

· Electricals and batteries go for specialist recycling

· Reusable items are recycled, repurposed or rehomed wherever possible

“Of course, not everything can be salvaged,” he says. “But we do our best to reduce waste and maximise reuse.”

That commitment to an ethical, environmentally responsible model hasn’t gone unnoticed.

In September, Shah was named one of the “environmental sector stars of tomorrow” in the 35 Under 35 Awards sponsored by Grundon Waste Management, and received his award at the Resource & Waste Management Expo in Birmingham.

“I think what sets us apart is the combination of best-practice sustainability, our ethical approach and our support for the legacy sector,” he reflects. “We’re not just clearing houses; we’re trying to do it in a way that respects people, the planet and the charities we serve.”

“We know we’re not the cheapest – and we’re okay with that”

Shah is refreshingly candid:

“We know we’re not the cheapest provider,” he says. “But we win a lot of work because of how we operate – our ethics, our transparency and our desire to work with good people.”

For Clearanceco, it comes back to that word again: privilege.

“We genuinely see what we do as a privilege,” Shah says. “If we can add value to charities and estates – financially, ethically and practically – then we’re happy.”

After all, not everyone has a Picasso on the wall.

But with the right approach, the right team and the right values, even modest possessions can do something extraordinary.