IN Brief:
- Avant Homes has agreed a multi-year repayment arrangement with government for eligible legacy fire safety remediation costs.
- Government funding will support covered work, with Avant reimbursing the department under an agreed long-term schedule.
- The mechanism changes the timing and procurement of remediation but leaves the housebuilder financially responsible for covered liabilities.
Avant Homes has agreed a government-backed payment plan covering eligible legacy building safety liabilities, altering how remediation work is funded and how the housebuilder repays the associated costs.
The agreement with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government allows historic fire safety remediation payments to be spread over several years. Eligible buildings covered by Avant’s Developer Remediation Contract can receive government funding for the work, with the group reimbursing the department under an agreed schedule.
The mechanism changes timing and procurement rather than removing the obligation. Avant remains financially responsible for costs covered by the arrangement even where public funding is used to progress the remediation itself.
That distinction is important because legacy building safety programmes compete with normal development activity for capital. Housebuilders must fund land, infrastructure, work in progress, sales operations, finance costs, and construction while also carrying liabilities attached to buildings completed years earlier.
Avant’s accounts for the year to 30 June 2025 illustrate the pressure around that balance. Revenue increased by 2% to £474m, while operating profit fell to £8.6m from £17m. Completions declined to 1,657 homes from 1,701, although private completions increased to 1,301 from 1,197.
The average selling price slipped from £310,000 to £306,000. The group reported a pre-tax loss of £111m, compared with £83m previously, with finance costs and exceptional items contributing to the result alongside provisions connected with historic fire safety remediation.
The Developer Remediation Contract is intended to place responsibility for life-critical fire safety defects with major developers rather than leaseholders. For the companies involved, that creates a long-duration construction programme as well as an accounting liability.
Remediation typically requires surveys, intrusive investigations, design, resident liaison, procurement, access systems, façade or compartmentation work, quality assurance, building control engagement, and evidence that completed defects have been corrected. Costs therefore arrive through a series of projects rather than one simple settlement.
Cash timing becomes particularly important where several buildings require work simultaneously. Large upfront remediation expenditure can coincide with land payments or active development programmes, placing pressure on liquidity even where a developer retains a viable core business.
Avant’s agreement allows eligible work to progress through government funding while the reimbursement is spread over a longer period. That can reduce immediate cash demands and separate part of the legacy programme from the day-to-day procurement of new housing.
The approach does not make the underlying liability smaller. A known repayment profile can be easier to plan around than irregular large cash calls, but the obligation remains on the balance sheet and still has to be supported by future cash generation.
For remediation contractors, greater certainty over funding can improve continuity. Stop-start programmes create additional scaffold, access, mobilisation, resident-management, and supply chain costs, particularly where work is suspended after surveys or design have already been completed.
Continuity is equally important technically. Remediation projects frequently uncover conditions that were not visible before opening up, requiring revised detailing, further investigations, or changes to the original package. Stable funding makes those decisions easier to manage than a programme in which every additional item triggers a fresh liquidity question.
The arrangement also introduces a stronger reporting interface between the developer and government. Where public money is advanced and later reimbursed, progress, eligible cost, programme status, and evidence of completion require clear records across the developer, consultants, principal contractors, and specialist trades.
Avant also faces potential exposure in Scotland as the remediation framework there develops. That position has been treated separately from its existing provision because the eventual scope and financial consequence depend on the implementation of the Scottish regime.
The payment plan therefore gives Avant more time to absorb legacy costs while continuing its current housebuilding programme, but it does not close the building safety chapter. The practical measure will be the pace at which affected buildings are remediated and the extent to which those repayments can be carried without restricting new development.
For a sector still working through defects inherited from an earlier regulatory era, the distinction is worth keeping precise: the government has changed the route by which eligible work can be financed, not transferred the final bill away from the developer.