Apartments and townhouses are being developed by DDL but receivers have taken over the project after financial trouble. Video / Michael Craig
An insolvent Auckland housing developer which had Flat Bush and Ellerslie projects has run up a $40m bill to its creditors.
DDL [Designing Dreams] Estates is in administration and receivership, with Tony Maginness and Jared Booth of Baker Tilly Staples Rodway appointed administrators in April.
Their May 16 report wasreleased to the Companies Office yesterday.
That showed financiers Quaestor was owed $20m and Arena was owed $14.5m, with preferential creditors owed a further $5m and unsecured creditors owed $469,000.
The company traded in the business of residential property development at 293 Flat Bush School Rd and 42 Arthur St, Ellerslie.
“The administrators understand that the development at 293 Flat Bush School Rd was completed and realised in 2022, while the development at 42 Arthur St remains ongoing,” the latest report said.
Arena put the company into voluntary administration and then receivers were appointed.
A former director blamed delays, material shortages and cost overruns caused by the pandemic, Maginness and Booth’s latest report said.
They decided the best way forward was to appoint a liquidator to take possession of any assets, realise those and distribute any funds.
The most recent failure was just part of a larger picture.
Last year, a territorial authority, roading and water utilities, real estate agents, a building materials supplier, concrete, civil engineering and consulting businesses were claiming money from other associated DDL businesses.
Creditors of DDL Homes Ormiston and DDL Homes Ormiston 2020 (in receivership, liquidation and voluntary administration) were claiming $55.7m.
But experts running the businesses involved in the 122-property Flat Bush scheme on Ormiston Rd say it’s too early to say who will get what money - if any.
A schedule of creditors from liquidators Baker Tilly then showed 34 businesses wanted money from those two businesses.
Auckland Council, Auckland Transport and Watercare Services were on the creditors’ list.
A DDL townhouse project in Ormiston Rd, Flat Bush. Photo / Michael Craig
Authorities and utilities are owed money by housing developers for building consents and resource consents, when they do regular compliance inspections, pass stages of work and for reserve contributions.
Having receivers take control of the then-under-construction Auckland housing project surprised buyers in one of New Zealand’s larger, troubled residential schemes.
But having their contracts changed three days before those receivers were appointed has further startled some of those caught up in it.
Buyers of Ormiston’s new DDL [Delivering Dreams] housing project at Flat Bush were told of a sudden company switch within three days of the receivership.
That change, they said, meant they were now dealing with a troubled company now in receivership and that was the last thing they expected.
Last year, reasons cited for DDL’s failure were delays, building material shortages, cost overruns, the pandemic, Auckland’s 107-day lockdown in 2021, a break-in and insufficient presales.
DDL was working on a 122-property housing project at Flat Bush when things went wrong.
A DDL house was wrecked when a digger was used to attack the almost-finished $600,000-plus home a few years ago.
