12:19 pm, June 26, 2025
Failed used car dealer Cazoo has racked up an eye-watering £6m in administrators’ fees since collapsing last year.
That is according to fresh documents from administrators Teneo, updating Companies House on the company’s current financial state.
The report reveals how much creditors can expect to claw back, how long proceedings are expected to last and how many additional costs have built up since the firm stopped trading.
Teneo says it remains ‘uncertain’ on the estimated total dividend which will be paid to secured, unsecured and secondary preferential creditors, the last of which includes a £9.9m claim from HMRC.
However, it does say that any money is expected to be paid to both unsecured and secondary preferential creditors in the next six to 12 months.
Meanwhile ‘ordinary referential creditors’ are expected to be paid back in full over the same period.
Car Dealer reported last year that Cazoo’s three companies – Cazoo Ltd, Cazoo Properties Ltd and Cazoo Holdings Ltd – owed money to a combined 10,107 creditors.
Overall, the trio crashed with a crippling £259,253,760 of unsecured debt have since changed their names as part of the insolvency proceedings.
Cazoo Ltd is now operating as ‘CL 1 Realisations Ltd’, Cazoo Properties Ltd is now ‘CPL 1 Realisations Ltd’ and Cazoo Holdings Ltd has become ‘CHL 1 Realisations Ltd’.
Other outgoings include sky-rocketing administrators’ fees, which are also yet to be paid to Teneo.
Overall, time costs for CL 1 total £4.7m at an hourly rate of £933, while administrators are also owed £538,000 at £918 per hour for work on CPL 1 and £719,000 at £1,023 per hour at CHL 1.
That brings the total amount owed to a whopping £6m, which Teneo say is higher than expected, partially due to ‘extensive correspondence’ dealing with HMRC.
The fees are yet to be received and will be paid for from the company’s assets before any distributions are made to creditors.
Meanwhile, a recent court order granted an extension to the administration period, which now must be wrapped up on or before May 21, 2026.
What’s been clawed back?
Away from outgoings, the administrators have also been busy working to claw back funds from across the business.
This has included expensive sales, claim and loan recoveries and refunds.
A breakdown of what each Cazoo company has recouped can be found below…
CL (Cazoo Ltd)
- Sale of brand, tech & IP: £5m total; £2.4m collected during this reporting period (the remainder was received earlier)
- Merchant services recovery: £188,000 recovered this period; £585,000 total to date
- Inventory realisation (vehicles & transporters): £204,000 realised to date (£130,000 lower than expected due to many vehicles being on finance)
- Insurance claim recovery: £16,000 recovered this period; £187,000 total
- Staff loans recovery: £1,300 collected this period
- Business rates refund: £29,000
- Other settlement (employment claim): A £120,000 settlement agreed; £30,000 overpaid and subsequently returned (net recovery £120k).
CPL (Cazoo Properties Ltd)
- Business rates refund: £73,000 recovered so far
- Leasehold property: Working to surrender 13 sites; seven lease surrenders remain outstanding.
CHL (Cazoo Holdings Ltd)
- Surplus from employee benefit trust (EBT): £8,000 returned to the estate.
- Bank interest:£307,000 earned during this period
What’s the exit plan?
Given that there is now have less than 12 months to finalise the administration process, Teneo is now facing a race against the clock to wrap up matters.
When it comes to an exit strategy the firm says it is currently facing three options: Dissolution, compulsory liquidation and creditors’ voluntary liquidation (CVL).
Dissolution would be used if there is no further property to realise and no funds available for creditor distributions. In this case administrators will file a notice with the Registrar of Companies and the company will be automatically dissolved three months later.
Meanwhile, compulsory liquidation would be considered appropriate if unresolved issues such as potential recoveries, legal claims or property to disclaim are uncovered.
In this case administrators would apply to court to end the administration and enter liquidation.
Finally a CVL could be used if a distribution to unsecured creditors is expected, beyond the prescribed part. Administrators would then file a notice and the company will move directly into voluntary liquidation, allowing a liquidator to handle ongoing claims and asset distributions.
What’s owed overall?
As reported by Car Dealer last year, Cazoo Ltd – the operating subsidiary via which Cayman Islands-based Cazoo Group ran its marketplace business – owed a total of £189,088,897 by the time it ceased trading.
Documents also revealed the firm had a whopping 10,074 creditors by the time it collapsed.
Meanwhile, Cazoo Properties Ltd owed £68,783,520 to 25 firms and Cazoo Holdings Ltd folded with eight creditors owed a combined £1,381,343.
Overall, the three Cazoo companies crashed with a crippling £259,253,760 of unsecured debt.
The Cazoo brand was eventually sold to Motors and has since relaunched as an online listings platform. The companies currently in administration have no link to Motors.
You can learn more about Cazoo’s rapid rise and fall here. Car Dealer also produced a special documentary about the firm, which can be watched on our YouTube channel.
The most recent documents cover the period between November 21, 2024 and May 20, 2025.
