Before you let anyone empty the house
If someone has died, one decision has to come before the clearance. Not because we say so, but because Belgian law reads the emptying of the house as an answer to it.
An heir has three options: accept the estate, accept it under judicial inventory, or renounce it. Accepting means taking on the debts along with the possessions.
That choice does not have to be made in words. Belgian law recognises tacit acceptance — behaviour only an heir would engage in is treated as acceptance, even where nobody signed anything and nobody meant to decide. Emptying the home of the deceased is the example the notaries themselves use for it.
And once the estate is accepted, it cannot be handed back. If debts surface afterwards — a loan, a tax assessment, an unpaid care bill, a guarantee given years ago — they are yours.
This is why we will not empty a deceased person’s home until the heirs have settled the question, and why we say so before we quote rather than after.
What to do instead
01
Leave the contents where they are
Looking, sorting, taking photographs and locking the door behind you are not acceptance. Clearing the house, selling the furniture or handing things out to family can be.
02
Speak to a notary first
A notary can establish what the estate actually contains and what each option would mean for you. It is their work, and it is the only reliable way to make this decision with your eyes open.
03
Ask about accepting under inventory
If you do not know whether the estate is solvent, accepting under judicial inventory limits what you can be held to. Renouncing is also a choice, with consequences of its own. Both are worth hearing about before either is closed off.
04
Then call whoever is going to empty it
Us or anyone else. We will wait, and we will confirm in writing that we are waiting if it helps your file.
Anyone willing to start before that decision is made is putting something you cannot undo at the mercy of their own schedule. There is no urgency here that is worth that.