Beware of Soraya homes - my family had a terrible experience with them for their short term rental holiday to Dubai

That sounds terrible!!!

I booked an apartment for my families annual holiday through Soraya homes. My family had a terrible experience as the apartment I rented for them - Al Basri 1012, was owned by Soraya herself. Firstly the apartment was full of her personal belongings and kids clothes, there were broken vases all around the apartment and a huge crack in the balcony door. Also one of the bedrooms had a very unsafe looking piece of metal hanging out of the door where a door handle looked like it had been pulled off and replaced with another below. There were shower heads missing from the bathrooms. Unfortunately I took the apartment without prior viewing as they told me there were tenants in until the date I wanted to take it. I rented it for 1 week. I had a horrible experience with this company from day one. They didnt turn up for hours on the first day to handover the keys and apartment and left my Sister, Mother and 2 young Nieces standing for hours waiting around in the reception they were ignoring calls saying they were on their way then eventually turned up with just the keys and not even any beach passes which were apparantly 'lost' and meant to be given later that same day. Instead Soraya herself gave them out of date passes which they had to change the dates on to access beach. The week only proceeded to get worse, one day they were all at the beach and when they returned later in the day, My sisters envelope with all her spending money had disappeared from the kitchen, also did her fionces new trainers from the balcony! They went to complain to reception and ask if anyone had come to the apartment, he told them that many people had been coming and going that day, agents, gas men,maintenance men etc as Soraya had told him on the phone to just give the keys to them to come and go without any prior notice or warning to my family. I was away on a work trip and my sister rang me crying and upset so I rang the lady who owns Soraya homes and she was ridiculously defensive and aggressive towards me basically saying my family were lying and so was the receptionist. I was obviously very concerned and told her to meet with my family, she did and was shouting so loud at them in the Al Basri reception that other residents came out to complain and tell her to be quiet. She told my family in a very aggressive way that they only hired the apartment for 1 week she can come and go as she pleases so deal with it!! :twisted: I was furious as my family from the UK obviously do not know the rules of rera here. So I rang her myself and told her I rented that apartment and she shouldnt be letting anyone in there without prior agreement. She ended up swearing at me and calling my family f**cking ****!!! I told my sister to ring the police and report her and also the stolen money and trainers which she did. I then started receiving threatening texts from Soraya which I forwarded to my sister and she showed the Police man. He confirmed that she was not allowed to enter at any time during their rental term of that week and if she did then to call them again. Please people do not use or trust this company at all, my families once a year holiday was ruined and they went home very poor and feeling very deflated and sad. I think she was renting this apartment out for extra cash as all her belongings were still in there and there was also receipts for fumigation of crawling insects from 9th october 2011 which was just a couple of weeks before my family arrived. The apartment was truly disgraceful and the staff even worse from Soraya homes . Its a criminal company do not trust them. Absolutely terrible this company has put me off ever taking another short term rental again. :evil: edited by harley30 on 07/11/2011 <em>edited by harley30 on 07/11/2011</em>