Administrators handling the collapse of Ardmore Construction Ltd have launched protective court proceedings against former subcontractors over Ardmore Construction cladding claims, with a new joint report filed at Companies House revealing that legal costs have reached approximately £1.9m, almost four times the original estimate. The subcontractors and schemes named in the proceedings have not been disclosed.
The report, submitted by administrators from BTG (formerly Begbies Traynor), sets out the scale of a legal workload that has grown far beyond initial projections. Administrators had originally budgeted £186,000 to £500,000 for legal fees. In the latest report, they attributed the overrun to “the volume of legal documents including claims, BLO claim standstill agreements being received and having to be dealt with” and the need for ongoing legal advice. Where standstill agreements with subcontractors could not be agreed, the administrators said they were compelled to initiate protective court proceedings to secure the company’s claims.
Background to the Ardmore Construction cladding claims
Ardmore Construction Ltd, a family-owned contractor founded in 1974 according to Construction Wave, went into administration on 28 August 2025 while already embroiled in multiple disputes. Among the most consequential was a dispute with BDW Trading Limited, the main trading arm of Barratt Developments, across five schemes: Crown Heights in Basingstoke, Explorer Court in Plymouth, Pierhead Lock in the Isle of Dogs, Galleria in Peckham, and Citiscape in Croydon. BDW had been considering applying for a Building Liability Order (BLO) before the firm collapsed.
The BDW case had already carried a heavy price. According to DWF, Ardmore had to pay BDW £14.5m, with the claim brought around twenty years after Practical Completion. That timeline illustrates the long tail of latent defect liability that continues to define the post-Grenfell regulatory landscape, and the particular exposure contractors face decades after a project closes.
In April this year, Crest Nicholson secured BLOs making seven Ardmore-linked companies jointly and severally liable for a £14.9m adjudication award against Ardmore Construction Ltd. Those orders related to fire-safety defects at the 19-building Admiralty Quarter development in Portsmouth. The Ardmore Construction cladding claims picture therefore spans multiple developments, multiple counterparties and multiple legal instruments, all landing simultaneously on an insolvent estate.
Creditor exposure and the wider Ardmore insolvency
The financial picture across the broader Ardmore group is sobering. Construction Enquirer has reported that Ardmore Construction Group went down owing creditors £29m in total. The statement of affairs for Ardmore Construction Ltd lists former subcontractors as being owed £1.3m for ordinary activities, with £15m of retentions outstanding and £3.4m owed to other trade creditors.
Ardmore Construction Group has itself since gone into administration. The parent entity, Ardmore Group Ltd, continues to trade, having had a proposal for a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) accepted by creditors earlier this month. No downstream cladding or BLO money has been recovered to date, according to administrators.
Despite the complexity of the claims landscape, the administrators said unsecured creditors are expected to receive a dividend, though the final amount will depend on the level of agreed and contingent claims that crystallise through the ongoing legal process. The Ardmore Construction cladding claims proceedings now form a central thread in determining what, if anything, the estate can recover from the downstream supply chain to distribute upwards.
For the wider industry, the case reinforces how BLOs and latent fire-safety defect liability are reshaping insolvency proceedings in construction, extending the legal lifecycle of disputes well beyond a contractor’s active trading period and placing administrators in the position of pursuing claims that originated years, sometimes decades, before a firm’s collapse.
