The firm, which was working on major sites for house builder Inland Homes, had been locked in a bitter payment battle, claiming to be owed £4.2m.

This had starved the firm of cash hitting subcontractors working for the builder prompting several winding up notices to be issued.

Vantage had four jobs with Inland with the biggest combined flats and houses schemes at West Drayton in Middlesex and Poole in Dorset.

Inland holds a charge on a loan previously advanced to Vantage to help the building contractor fund work on its sites.  Edward Williams and Nicholas Stewart of Grant Thornton are the independent joint administrators.

The move has also hit four other sites for different developers in the south of the country and is understood to have left up to 400 creditors chasing cash owed to them.

The specialist housing contractor turned over around £55m a year and was based out of offices, near Reigate.