By Bill Gleeson, Business Editor, Liverpool Daily Post
CONSTRUCTION group David McLean has filed a winding up petition against The Albany Building company owned by local property developer Chris Nisbet.
The move follows a long- running dispute between the two property companies. However, Mr Nisbet said yesterday his legal advisers were preparing to counter-sue McLean's for money he says that the company owes him.
The dispute between McLean's contracting arm and Albany is over construction costs at The Albany Building flats development, in Old Hall Street, in Liverpool city centre, even though the bulk of the work was completed in summer, 2005.
A construction industry adjudication hearing before Christmas found in McLean's favour, but Albany has yet to pay the sum due. That hearing dealt with invoices worth £283,000, but yesterday McLean owner David McLean claimed further adjudication cases are planned for amounts totalling around £4m.
The showdown between what are two of the biggest players on the Merseyside property scene
will now move to the High Court in Manchester on April 2, when a judge will decide whether to appoint a receiver.
Yesterday David McLean said he believed Albany had been unable to sell enough apartments at The Albany Building.
Last summer, Albany said it had sold 70 of its 123 units at the building and Mr Nisbet yesterday said sales had been slow since then.
Mr McLean said: "This is something we didn't want to do, but what else can we do?"
Last night, Mr Nisbet insisted his business was itself owed money by McLean and that the two companies had adhered to a verbal agreement to offset their debts to each other for many months now. Mr Nisbet said that about a year ago McLeans had to pay Albany in excess of £2m as compensation for late delivery of building work. He said he was still owed money from that award.
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