Anticipatory and adjudication BLOs: Crest Nicholson v Ardmore Explained

Is it premature to grant a Building Liability Order (commonly referred to as a “BLO”) before liability has been established in court? Is it premature to grant a BLO based on an Adjudication Award? No on both counts, says the TCC in its recent decision in Crest Nicholson v Ardmore: the second decision to provide guidance on BLOs, though the first which has been defended.

What went wrong at admiralty quarter?

The dispute arose from the construction of 19 blocks of flats known as Admiralty Quarter built in Portsmouth between 2007 and 2009. Crest Nicholson (“Crest”), as a group of four related companies, held a long lease over the development sites. They engaged Ardmore Construction Limited (“Ardmore”) as the main contractor tasked with the design and construction of Admiralty Quarter.

After the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, investigations lead to allegations of several fire safety deficiencies at Admiralty Quarter. Those issues included

non-compliant combustible insulation,
improper installation of cavity and fire barriers, including some which were missing, and,
missing fire-resistant sheathing board in the brickwork cladding system

Crest, faced with the remedial works, began an adjudication against Ardmore in May 2025 and, on 29 August 2025, the Adjudicator awarded Crest £14.9 million.

However, Ardmore had entered into administration the day before. That led to Crest raising proceedings in the High Court of England & Wales seeking two BLOs.

What is a BLO?

Building Liability Orders were introduced in section 130 of the Building Safety Act 2022. They are a mechanism to extend the liability of a company liable for building defects to a related company or companies. The court must be satisfied that it is “just and equitable” to do so. For more detail, please see our previous blog on BLOs.

Mr Justice Constable’s decision

Crest raised proceedings against Ardmore Construction Limited, and seven related companies, as well as two further unrelated organisations. At this stage of proceedings, Crest have asked the court to grant BLOs for two purposes:

1. To enforce the Adjudicator’s Award of £14.9 million

2. For liability arising from section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972

The two BLOs were aimed at other companies in the Ardmore group. It was agreed that they were related to Ardmore. Nonetheless, the defenders disputed that it was “just and equitable” to impose the BLOs.

The TCC dealt with two main issues:

1. Could the court grant an “Anticipatory BLO”? 1972

This referred to a BLO which would be granted before evidence had been led to establish the facts and prove liability at a trial for a breach of section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972.

The Ardmore companies argued that it would be premature to do so for three core reasons:

Firstly, to decide whether it is just and equitable to grant a BLO, the court should look holistically at all the evidence but could not do so before a trial has taken place.
Secondly, it did not make sense to impose a liability on other parties before determining whether it existed against the contractor itself.
Finally, the court should not impose an indeterminate liability, and the court would not be able to value the claim without hearing evidence.

Mr Justice Constable disagreed. He considered that it was appropriate to decide the point on an interim basis: so that the BLO could be recalled if liability was not subsequently established. The court emphasised that on the state of the evidence before trial, the court could be confident that the necessary facts were proven. It is important and notable that several key facts were not disputed.

2. Could the court grant an “Adjudication BLO”? 1972

This dispute was over whether an adjudication award is a “relevant liability” and could therefore form the basis for a BLO.

Ardmore’s argument was, in short, that an adjudication award was not a “relevant liability” because it is temporary, being subject to review by the courts.

The court rejected this argument too. Mr Justice Constable took the view that the adjudication award is a liability until it is overruled. His reasoning considered that adjudication is an important framework for construction disputes which would be undermined if BLOs could be granted to enforce them.

Interestingly, in Mr Justice Constable’s view, the failure to comply with the adjudication award would also constitute a relevant liability.

The prematurity argument made in relation to the Anticipatory BLO was also made against the Adjudication BLO. For the same reasons, the court rejected them and considered it was appropriate to grant the Adjudication BLO – making the Ardmore companies liable for the adjudicator’s award.