Skip Hire for Landlords & Letting Agents
Every day a property sits empty is a day it isn’t earning. And in most voids, the bottleneck isn’t the decorator or the gas safety check — it’s the pile of furniture, mattresses and half-used paint tins the last tenant left behind.
Clearing it looks like the simplest job on the list. It’s usually the one with the most legal exposure attached.
Here’s what landlords and letting agents need to get right before the skip arrives.
First: don’t bin the tenant’s belongings too quickly
Items left behind still belong to the former tenant. The moment you take control of them, you become what the law calls an involuntary bailee — you didn’t ask for the goods, but you now have a duty to take reasonable care of them.
Dispose of them too soon and the tenant can bring a claim for damages, even if the items looked like rubbish to you.
The route out is the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. In practice:
- Inventory everything. Photograph the property room by room before you touch anything, and list what’s been left.
- Serve a written notice on the former tenant giving a description of the goods, how and where to collect them, and a reasonable deadline. Post a copy at the property (photograph it in place) and send a copy to the last known address and email.
- Store the goods safely for the notice period — not in the garden, and not in a skip.
- Keep every record. Notices, photos, proof of delivery, dates. If it’s ever disputed, the paperwork is your defence.
Two things worth flagging. If your tenancy agreement already contains an express clause covering disposal of goods left behind, that may give you a cleaner route — check it first. And if the tenancy hasn’t formally ended, clearing the property is a much riskier proposition and can stray into unlawful eviction territory. Wales also has its own statutory abandonment procedure under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.
This is general guidance, not legal advice — for a high-value or contested clearance, take proper advice before you dispose of anything.
Second: the waste is your responsibility, not the skip driver’s
When you or your agent clear a rental property, you’re doing it as part of a business. That brings you under the duty of care in Section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
In plain terms: you must make sure your waste is only handed to someone authorised to take it, and you must be able to prove it. That means:
- Check the carrier is registered. The Environment Agency keeps a public register and it takes under a minute to search. (Ours is CBDU64707.)
- Keep the waste transfer note for at least two years.
- Be wary of cheap “man with a van” clearances. If that waste ends up fly-tipped and it’s traced back to your property, you’re the one being asked to prove you did your checks.
That last point has more teeth than it used to. The government confirmed in July 2026 that the maximum on-the-spot fine for fly-tipping is rising to £5,000 — a 400% increase — with local authorities already running over half a million enforcement actions a year.
A skip from a licensed operator gives you a documented chain of custody by default. For a portfolio landlord, that’s the real value — not just the container. Our waste management service covers scheduled and one-off collections across multiple sites under a single account.
Third: know what can’t go in the skip
This is where void clearances differ from a normal house clear-out — rental properties are full of exactly the items that need separating.
Upholstered seating (POPs)
Sofas, armchairs, sofa beds, recliners, futons, upholstered dining and office chairs, beanbags, footstools and cushions are treated as containing persistent organic pollutants. Since January 2023 they must be kept separate from other waste, described as domestic seating containing POPs, and sent for incineration — they can’t be landfilled or recycled.
Critically, if one sofa goes into a mixed skip, the entire load can be reclassified as POPs waste and charged at the higher rate. Tell your skip provider before the skip is delivered, not after.
Also excluded from a general skip
- Fridges and freezers (refrigerant gases)
- Mattresses — usually accepted, but as a separately charged item rather than part of the mixed load
- TVs, monitors and electricals (WEEE)
- Paint, solvents, oils and cleaning chemicals
- Gas bottles and aerosols
- Tyres
- Plasterboard, which needs its own container or bag
- Loose batteries and disposable vapes — a growing cause of fires in skips and collection vehicles
- Anything suspected to contain asbestos — in older stock that includes textured coatings, garage roofs, soffits and old floor tiles. Stop and get it tested.
The pattern to remember: a void clearance is rarely one waste stream. Plan for two or three, and use a hazardous waste collection for anything that can’t legally go in the skip.
Fourth: pick the size on volume and weight
The usual mistake is ordering by property size when the load is actually heavy.
| Job | Typical fit |
|---|---|
| Small flat, light clearance | 4–6 yard |
| Full house clearance, bulky but light | 12–14 yard |
| Kitchen or bathroom strip-out | 6–8 yard (heavy — don’t go bigger) |
| Garden and shed clearance | 6–8 yard |
| Mixed refurb across a whole void | 8 yard plus a separate POPs collection |
Soil, rubble, tiles and plaster hit the weight limit long before they fill the space. Household furniture does the opposite. If a void involves both, two smaller skips almost always work out cheaper and safer than one large one that can’t legally be lifted. You can see the full range from 2yd minis to 40yd roll-on-off containers here.
Fifth: sort the permit before the tenancy ends
If the skip has to sit on a public road rather than a driveway, you need a permit from the local council, plus lights and markers. Application periods vary from same day to several weeks depending on the authority — enough to lose a week of a void if you leave it until the keys come back.
Two practical fixes:
- Book the skip against the tenancy end date, not the day you inspect. We arrange the permit on your behalf in the vast majority of cases.
- Where there’s no legal placement, ask about a wait-and-load service — the vehicle stays while the property is cleared, which avoids the permit entirely and suits terraced streets and flats with permit parking.
We deliver through 1,100+ licensed local suppliers, so permit knowledge is local wherever your properties are — check your area across 450+ towns and cities.
For agents managing multiple properties
If you’re clearing several voids a month, the admin is the cost, not the skips. Worth having in place:
- A single account with consolidated monthly invoicing rather than a card payment per job
- A named account manager who knows your patch and the local council permit process
- Standing arrangements for the awkward streams — POPs seating, mattresses, fridges — so a contractor isn’t making a judgement call on site
- Waste transfer notes filed against each property reference, ready for deposit disputes
That last point matters more than it sounds. When a landlord claims clearance costs against a deposit, adjudicators want evidence: the check-in and check-out inventory, dated photographs, and an invoice from a licensed carrier showing what was removed and where it went. A vague cash payment to a van is very hard to defend.
Our Wastebox reporting portal gives account customers their documentation in one place rather than scattered across email threads — see waste reporting for how it works.
One change coming in October
From October 2026, waste receiving sites in England, Wales and Northern Ireland must record waste movements through the government’s new Digital Waste Tracking service, with carriers following in the next phase. For landlords and agents, the practical effect is that paper waste transfer notes will be replaced by digital records — which is good news if you’ve ever tried to find a two-year-old transfer note during a deposit dispute.
It also raises the floor. Operators who weren’t keeping proper records will have nowhere to hide, and using one that’s already set up for it protects you as the waste producer.
Clearing a void this month?
Select A Skip has provided nationwide skip hire and waste management for over 30 years, working with landlords, letting agents and property managers across the UK — next-day delivery in most areas, council permits handled for you, and correct separation of POPs seating, mattresses and electricals as standard.
- One property? Get a home skip price.
- Managing a portfolio? Get a commercial quote or apply for a trade account.
- Not sure what you need? Talk to us or call 01743 341 000 — we reply the same working day.