Riddlesworth Hall creditors: 1 September claims deadline

Anyone still owed money by Riddlesworth Hall Preparatory School, the boarding prep school nine miles west of Diss that shut in April 2023, has until Tuesday 1 September to put a claim in, and the liquidators now expect to pay back 28.7p in the pound.

The deadline is set out in a notice of intended dividend published in The London Gazette on 11 August. It is the last call: the joint liquidators say they intend to declare a first and final dividend to unsecured creditors within two months of the proving date, and a creditor who has not proved by the time the dividend is declared cannot disturb the distribution afterwards.

What is in the pot, and what is owed

The figures come from the joint liquidators’ progress report to 12 June 2026, filed at Companies House on 30 July and signed on 20 July. It is the fullest account of the collapse yet published.

Everything the liquidation has to distribute came from one place. The administration handed over a surplus of £1,855,277, and bank interest on that money has added £43,514, for total realisations of £1,898,791. The costs of the liquidation, the largest single item being £226,218 of corporation tax, take £399,939 of it.

That left preferential creditors paid in full. Eighteen former staff claimed £16,638 in arrears of pay and holiday, and £18,410.81 has been paid out in preferential dividends once an updated claim from the Redundancy Payments Service was included. HMRC’s secondary preferential claim, for PAYE and employees’ National Insurance, was estimated at £273,484, agreed at £170,137 and paid at 100p in the pound.

What is left for unsecured creditors is £1,277,334, against roughly £4.45m of claims. Hence 28.7p.

Why local creditors recover so little

The single reason the dividend is 28.7p rather than something much higher is the shape of the creditor list. Of the £4.45m of unsecured claims, £3,797,025, or roughly 85p of every pound owed, is money the company owed to connected group companies and to its own director. Every genuine outside creditor, the local suppliers, the former staff and the parents, is queuing behind a connected-party claim eight times the size of everything else put together.

The rest of the list is small by comparison. Trade and expense creditors are down for £313,009. Former employees have unsecured claims of £187,115, calculated from pay, age and length of service for 17 redundant staff, on top of the preferential arrears already paid. HMRC has an unsecured claim of £108,125 for employer’s National Insurance. There is a £26,872 pension funding deficit the liquidators are still reviewing.

And £14,681 is owed to parents: the estimated outcome statement lists it as “consumer creditors, school fees”, claims for deposit refunds. At 28.7p, that group of families is in line to share about £4,200 between them.

How the school got here

The company’s own administrators set out the sequence in their statement of proposals, delivered to creditors in September 2023.

Riddlesworth Hall School was established in 1946, initially as a girls’ school and later taking boys and girls aged 2 to 13, in a Grade II listed building standing in about 25 acres of parkland. The company behind it was sold to Confucius International Education Ltd in September 2015 and the school was rebranded Confucius International School, Riddlesworth Hall, with enrolment deliberately kept small and aimed at international students.

That model broke in 2020. When the pandemic closed borders, international pupils could neither get home nor get back to school, and those who could not return withdrew. The administrators record that a meeting with parents in November 2021 failed to produce a rescue, that by July 2022 the school faced a winding-up petition and was paying staff late, and that experienced teachers and many pupils left.

By early 2023 the school was running on 10 teachers and 8 support staff. An Ofsted inspection in February 2023 failed it in many respects, including health and safety and teaching, and the results were released that April. The administrators state that keeping the school open then became untenable, and it closed on 28 April 2023. In March 2023 HMRC had visited the premises and listed items that could be sold against a debt the administrators put at more than £250,000. Staff salaries for April were paid only with personal funding from the former head. May and June 2023 salaries were never paid.

The accounts tell the same story more quietly: at the last set filed, to 31 August 2019, the company had accumulated losses of £2,445,832.

The end came in stages. A secured lender appointed receivers over the hall and its land on 29 May 2023 against a debt of about £1,190,578. The company went into administration by court order on 17 July 2023, on the application of the school manager, who was herself a creditor. The hall was marketed and sold, with net proceeds anticipated at £2,131,581, and the secured debt was repaid in full. The case moved from administration into creditors’ voluntary liquidation on 13 June 2024.

One further twist is on the file. One of the two joint liquidators left the firm during the year and was replaced by court order on 27 April 2026, with the change registered at Companies House in May. The liquidators have also now concluded their investigations into the directors’ conduct and report that no significant findings were substantiated that would bring in more money for creditors.

Fees are disclosed. Creditors approved an adjusted cap of £134,773 on 19 May 2026, and £111,674 has been drawn to date.

What it means for you

If you are owed money, prove it by 1 September. That means former teaching and support staff with claims beyond the arrears already paid, parents owed deposit refunds, and any local business that supplied the school before April 2023 and never got paid. Claims go in writing to Brian Burke, joint liquidator, at Quantuma Advisory Limited, 3rd Floor, 37 Frederick Place, Brighton, BN1 4EA. The named contact in both the Gazette notice and the progress report is Thomas Morris, on 01273 053251 or Thomas.Morris@quantuma.com. A proof of debt form is attached to the progress report on the Companies House filing history, which is free to read.

Expect roughly 29p, not the full amount. The 28.7p figure is the liquidators’ own estimate at 12 June 2026, not a guarantee, and it will move if more claims come in before the deadline. When the earlier administration estimated the outcome in 2023 the range given was 20.9p to 35.6p, so the current figure sits in the middle of what was forecast three years ago.

Creditors have rights over the fees too. An unsecured creditor with the support of at least 5% by value, or the court’s permission, can ask the liquidators in writing for more information about their fees and expenses within 21 days of receiving the report. With 10% by value, a creditor can apply to court to challenge the remuneration, within eight weeks of receiving it.

One point of geography. Riddlesworth Hall has a Diss postal address but sits in the parish of Riddlesworth, just over the boundary in Breckland rather than South Norfolk. That matters if you are chasing anything through a council rather than the liquidator.

Once the dividend is paid the liquidators will send a final report to members and creditors and seek their release. After that the file closes.

More from Wymondham News: planning applications in and around Wymondham, house prices across South Norfolk and things to do in the area.

Sources: The Gazette, notice 5188796, 11 August 2026; joint liquidators’ progress report for the period to 12 June 2026 and joint administrators’ statement of proposals of 4 September 2023, both on the Companies House record for company 04011003. Companies House and Gazette material is published under the Open Government Licence. Figures marked as estimates are the office holders’ own and may change.