Creditors of Dylan Harvey Residential include 500 investors who handed over £6.5m in sums ranging from £5,000 to £20,000 as off-plan reservations for apartments at sites which were never actually built because of market conditions and developer failures.
They include schemes at Clippers Quay in Salford Quays, Zararchie Tower and Bengal Mill in Ancoats, Manchester, and phases two and three of the Fresh Salford scheme.
Mark Getliffe and Diane Hill, of Manchester-based accountants CLB Coopers, are handling the administration of the company, which has its head office in Padiham, Lancashire.
Dylan Harvey Residential acted as sales agent for several projects across the north west. It had a stated turnover of more than £50m. It would typically market a scheme and handle the sales. Once a reservation was secured, DHR would enter into a contract with a developer, committing the investor to buy the apartment once building work was complete.
A total of 350 people paid out £2.6m for flats at Clippers Quay, while 120 deposits totalling £1.4m were put down for apartments at Zararchie Tower and 49 worth £378,000 on homes in Bengal Mill.
The first phase of Fresh Salford was completed, and the subsequent phases attracted 181 deposits totalling £1.6m.
The collapse of Dylan Harvey Residential does not affect the Liverpool waterfront scheme Mann Island, which is part of a separate joint venture, or the commercial office space business and other companies within its parent, the Dylan Harvey Group, which was set up by Toby Whittaker and named after his eldest sons.
Mr Getliffe said: "We are working hard to finalise the full financial position and explore all the options in respect of any value which can be recovered for creditors. The business appears to have failed because of the domino effect of the residential property market grinding to a halt. It was also affected by one of its contractual partners, Fresh Developments, going into liquidation in April this year, owing it £1.7m.
"In some ways, not having to contractually complete on properties valued at the peak of the market and for which mortgages may now no longer be available may have limited the potential losses to the clients."
In a statement, Dylan Harvey Group said: "Lack of funding availability has severely impacted both developers and the purchaser's ability to secure mortgage funds.
"DHR has not been immune to these factors. Investors have been unable to secure mortgage funds to complete on key schemes over the past 12 months which has had a material adverse impact on DHR's cash flow.
"Further, a number of DHR's contractual partners have failed to secure development funding to commence planned developments. DHR has done everything in its power to try and ensure delivery of all its developments but following the financial loss of significant deposits paid to now-insolvent developers, is no longer viable as a going concern."
If you have been affected, email the business desk at businessdesk@men-news.co.uk
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Maxie Fergie (05/08/2009 at 08:48)
It should be fairly easy to track down the monies and returned to their rightful owners or is that being too naive?
MPs gravy train, UK (05/08/2009 at 09:57)
The Right to Reply (05/08/2009 at 11:42)
citycentre, manchester (05/08/2009 at 11:54)
They hoped to get something for less than market rate and make a profit, but the gamble didn't pay off on this occassion.
Billy the Fish! (05/08/2009 at 11:59)
Some of the banks are still reticent on lending (even to business) because of the money they have to pay back the government when they were bailed out?
According to one chap 'from the city' he said a lot of the banks profits they are making now is going straight back to pay the government loan, which means they don’t have the 'coffers' and the confidence to start lending again?
Like I said, I have heard and read so much about this that I am more confused than when the banking crisis began to happen, however, according to this chap the money from the government may have saved a few banks, but they still are scared of lending.
citycentre, manchester (05/08/2009 at 12:23)
In part they don't want to lend, especially to businesses because they don't know how bad the recession will be and how many businesses will fail, taking the banks money with them.
A vicious circle really, the banks wnot lend, so businesses fail, so the banks are even more reluctant to lend
dog hardy, manchester (05/08/2009 at 18:07)