Troubled property development company Haven Homes has no further outstanding creditors left unpaid or unsecured, a court has heard.

Haven Homes is facing a winding up petition presented by Castletown builders merchants J. Qualtrough and Co, John Qualtrough and Ballasalla-based investment company Sherwood Ltd who claim they are owed more than £5m between them.

Central to the dispute is The Meadows development in Castletown where work stopped last year and a number of homes remain unfinished, while building work has not even started on some plots.

At court hearing in January Deemster Andrew Corlett said the picture he was getting was of ‘many people’ apart from the petitioners owed a ‘substantial amount of money’.

But returning to court for a case management hearing on Thursday he said he understood that yet more creditors had been paid out and there were currently no outstanding creditors.

Haven’s advocate Vicki Unsworth confirmed there were no outstanding creditors that are unpaid and not compounded for.

‘We absolutely dispute that the claimants are creditors,’ she added.

A court hearing in January heard that Haven Homes director Dave Lewis has had his personal properties arrested to secure a Treasury debt which included an unpaid VAT bill of almost £164,000 and various Income Tax Division charges.

Lawyers for the claimants have been seeking disclosure of documents from Haven Homes including bank statements.

Sherwood’s advocate Rob Long said ‘nothing to date has been forthcoming’.

Ms Unsworth said certain categories of document would be provided voluntarily but not everything sought. She said it was ‘nothing more than a fishing exercise’ that was not related to the solvency of Haven Homes as it is now.

But Gill Christian, representing Qualtrough’s, John Qualtrough and a further claimant Tramman Ltd, said bank statements had been requested since the outset.

She said all that had been provided was a single-page draft balance sheet that wasn’t audited. The claimants are seeking documents including financial statements for 2023, 2024 and 2025 to provide some from of third party corroboration of the company’s solvency or otherwise.

A hearing on the disclosure application submitted Mr Long will take place towards the end of May. In the meantime, Ms Unsworth agreed to the voluntary disclosure of certain documents.

Deemster Corlett rejected an application - not supported by Haven Homes - to have him recused from hearing the winding up petition on the basis that he’d formerly had a close professional connection with Mr Lewis’s father Ashton Lewis during the time when the latter was chief executive of the Manx Electricity Authority.

The Deemster said that professional connection ended in 2007 when he was appointed a full-time judge. ‘That is now a long time ago,’ he pointed out.

He said he did not consider this would impinge on his ability to deal with the case in any way.

Ashton Lewis is no longer director of Haven Homes but he remains a director of North Shore Land Company Ltd which is seeking to become a party to the case.