Contractor insolvency, late Payment Notices, and CA Final Account duty

You are the Contract Administrator on a £15 million mixed-use scheme of ground-floor retail and 46 apartments above, procured under JCT SBC 2024 with a fixed 14-month construction programme. You are eight months into construction. The contractor is Northwood Build Ltd and the employer is Eastpark Developments Ltd. To date you have certified £8.2 million of interim payments. Three months ago the contractor missed two payments owing to a key own-label sub-contractor, M2 Joinery Ltd, who had been engaged for the apartment kitchen carcasses and several specialist joinery items. M2 stopped work on site. The contractor blamed your office for late certification and produced records suggesting that Interim Payment Notice number 5 was issued nine days late. On checking, your office accepts that this is correct: a member of staff was on leave, no cover was arranged, and the Payment Notice was issued nine days after the due date. This week Northwood's parent group, Northwood Holdings PLC, has announced a financial restructuring and an emergency CVA proposal. Two weeks later Northwood Build Ltd enters administration. The administrator has written to you and to the employer indicating that the administrator does not intend to continue the works and proposes to "step out" within fourteen days. The employer has paid £8.2 million to date, is concerned that work in place is worth significantly less, and asks you for written advice on three points: how termination operates under the contract, what to do about the late Payment Notice and the implications for any final account, and how to complete the works. You hold a current PII policy with an aggregate limit of £10 million and a £25,000 each-and-every-claim excess. The practice principal asks you to brief them on professional exposure.