Urang Property Management Limited
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Avoid Urang At All Costs
Our eight-flat property in SE London has been with Urang for almost a year and it has been an unmitigated nightmare from start to end. Their initial pitch seemed professional, but their inability to reply to emails or pick up the phone has often made it feel like a full time job trying to get them to do their contractual responsibilities. For context, our building was undergoing minor chimney renovation work when Urang took over, as our previous company was leaving the area. Urang's inability to follow basic instructions led to huge problems with our contractors, resulting in scaffolding being unnecessarily on the front of the building for eight months more than it should have been, prompting not just complaints from neighbours, but also a break-in and robbery in a ground floor flat. The problems started with the "Onboarding" process, where our property was seemingly ignored for quite a long period. If we did manage to speak to someone, we'd just be told casually that our emails were being directed to the Urang's Junk folder - we would beg them to find a way to prevent this from happening, but this was always ignored. After three or four months, I was told that our account had been transitioned to a specific property manager. At that point, her boss acknowledged that there were a lot of irregularities with our Onboarding process (it took four months to set up a bank account for our building), and that Urang would consider a refund for the poor level of service to date. Unfortunately the communication issues persisted after this, and it took another two months for Urang to pay the contractors to finish the chimney job to get the scaffolding down. Our leaseholders had been in a position to pay from October, but Urang's haphazard (at times, semi-literate) communication seemed to confuse things even more. When I did manage to speak to them, we just seemed to have repetitive conversations around Section 20 consultations (a topic already discussed at length with various representatives), or just be given inaccurate details about our building's funds; it was just impossible to make any progress. I would ask about the status of the aforementioned refund (more pertinent now, but again, this was usually just ignored. After six months, they did transfer the appropriate funds so the building work could be completed, and we're now in the process of leaving Urang. Even though all of the staff's email signatures state they're in London, every call just seems to be redirected to an office or call centre in (I think) Cape Town. When everything seems to be going constantly wrong, it's uncomfortable having a property manager literally on the other side of the world. Urang is a big corporate entity who might be able to keep things ticking over for very straightforward properties, but if there's anything that deviates from the norm, they are flummoxed and incapable of resolving. Best to avoid if you can. **Below is a response to Urang's reply below (original review edited for character limit) — The phrase "immediate steps" is used to describe a task which should have taken half an hour to do, but instead took 4 months, despite persistent chasing from our side. — While the building works did indeed begin under previous management, the "issues relating to the building's works" only began once Urang came on board. — As previously stated, discussions around Section 20 guidance had been covered in detail in Oct/Nov of the previous year. We are surprised that this is still being used as an excuse to defend the additional two month delay between late Jan and late March to pay the contractors. — While we appreciate the aspiration to have full funds in place before paying the initial 50% payment to the contractors, we had said repeatedly that completing the building works swiftly was our biggest priority (particularly given the excessive delays already caused by Urang), so it's frustrating that our Directors' instructions were ignored for so long on this point.