Administrator points to contract delays and “significant levels of debt” at Scottish housebuilder

Deveron Homes

Scottish housebuilder Deveron Homes has gone bust, with blame for the collapse being put on high levels of debt and contract delays.

Five staff have been made redundant by administrator KPMG, which is looking for buyers of the firm’s assets, along with those of sister company Deveron Construction.

Deveron Homes was founded in 2002 through the management buyout of another housebuilder, RB Farquhar Homes. Deveron Construction was incorporated six years later.

The privately-owned firms built private residential homes, mainly in Aberdeenshire, and offered design and build contracts for housing associations across the north of Scotland.

KPMG said that in recent years, both businesses “encountered challenges and delays on a number of development projects.

“The resulting additional costs, combined with difficult conditions in the sector and the wider challenges in the Aberdeenshire housing market, left the firms with reduced margins, significant levels of debt and a lack of funding to acquire new sites.”

The group’s remaining 14 employees have been retained to help the administrators sell the companies’ assets, including four sites being developed in Burntisland, Keith, Kemnay and Peterhead.