Housebuilder Devonshire Homes has entered administration following mounting financial pressures and losses linked to rising build costs.<\/p>\n
Sarah Collins and Jonathan Marston of Alvarez & Marsal Europe have been appointed joint administrators to oversee the business, which reported a turnover of \u00a352m in its latest accounts and employed 77 staff.<\/p>\n
The move follows the filing of a notice of intention to appoint administrators and marks a significant development for the regional housebuilder, which was established in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
The administration affects Devonshire Homes Ltd only, with administrators confirming that other Devonshire-branded developments and associated companies are not impacted.<\/p>\n
Two live schemes are included within the administration process \u2014 the 225-home Grange development in Bideford and the 320-home St Michael\u2019s Reach scheme in Penzance.<\/p>\n
The future of those sites, along with the impact on employees, contractors and buyers, will now be assessed as part of the insolvency process.<\/p>\n
According to its accounts for the year ending 30 September 2024, the business posted a pre-tax loss of \u00a3137,024, while also warning of wider financial pressures linked to cost overruns on a development outside its core build model.<\/p>\n
The company said it had significantly underestimated build costs on a partly completed scheme involving bespoke timber-frame properties, resulting in a forecast loss of \u00a31.3m. Devonshire said the project sat outside its usual strategy of delivering single-family homes using standard house types.<\/p>\n
In its accounts, the business said it would not acquire similar sites in future, treating the loss as an exceptional item. The company recorded an in-year loss of \u00a3156,099 and made a provision of \u00a31.12m to account for the expected overall loss.<\/p>\n
Auditors had also flagged a material uncertainty around the company\u2019s ability to continue as a going concern, warning in October that additional funding would be required to support both existing and future developments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Devonshire Homes\u2019 insolvency leaves two major residential developments facing uncertainty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266702,"featured_media":2111803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53262],"coauthors":[127717],"class_list":["post-2111802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","tag-derbyshire","tag-top-story"],"yoast_head":"\n