We were instructed by joint administrators from Moore Stephens to advise on this development site and appraise all options available to maximise realisations. This led to our instruction to dispose of the site. 

The client’s challenge

• The site received planning permission in 2013 for 344 flats, which had been pre-sold off plan to overseas investors, plus commercial space. On-going delays however meant that only the early stages of the project had begun despite close to £30 million of investment from buyers, the majority of which had been withdrawn by the developer.
• Manchester City Council withdrew planning permission on the basis that the works hadn’t commenced within the required three year period.
• A large number of Unilateral Notices were put on the title by the investors.
• The administrators needed to decide whether to build out the scheme themselves or to sell the site in its existing state.

The LSH solution

• We engaged with Manchester City Council in order to discuss and understand the planning position.
• We undertook negotiations with a number of developers to explore the possibility of building out a scheme at the site, in order to gauge the feasibility of the administrators proceeding with a build out proposal, but these all proved unviable.
• We appraised the development proposals and provided detailed advice on the merits of each proposal to the administrators.
• Ultimately we advised the administrators that the recommended route to a realisation was to sell the site in its existing state. We considered all available routes to market and recommended that an online auction would be most suitable. This was in order to expose the site to the widest possible market both nationally and internationally in order to demonstrate that the administrators had performed their duty to achieve Market Value.

Results achieved

• The property was entered into our online auction and we were able to generate a good level of interest in the property from buyers who were able to move to the required timescales. 
• The online auction enabled the property to be exposed to a wide audience and ultimately a sale of the property at a competitive price of £5,200,000 was achieved.