Current work

What we do, and who does it.

The Hourami Group exists to bring one way of thinking to a set of businesses and buildings that would otherwise be handled separately.

How we work

What you are engaging.

Assignments undertaken through The Hourami Group are led personally by Botan Hourami, with one point of responsibility throughout — whether the work is delivered directly or through specialist partners.

Where a job needs a contractor, a project team or a facilities operation, one is brought in and the outcome remains his to answer for.

One person is answerable from the first conversation to the last invoice. That is the whole point of the structure.

How I work

The same five steps, every time.

  1. 01

    Understand

    Listen before recommending. Most briefs describe a symptom, not the problem.

  2. 02

    Investigate

    Find the root cause, including where nobody has thought to look.

  3. 03

    Challenge

    Question the assumption everyone has been working from, especially the expensive one.

  4. 04

    Deliver

    Coordinate the right specialists and stay accountable for what they produce.

  5. 05

    Improve

    Leave the asset stronger than it was found, not merely working again.

On procurement

We don’t buy the cheapest solution. We buy the solution that creates the greatest long-term value.

Representative mandates

Current and recent instructions.

Described without naming the client, unless naming has been agreed. The people who need to know already do, and discretion is part of what is being engaged.

Mixed-use building transformationNotting Hill, London

Botan was originally brought in personally to deal with snagging and support the developer in closing out outstanding issues. As the role expanded, the ongoing facilities management contract was placed with Seeasa Limited, where Botan continues to be involved through his contract role. He has also separately supported the ownership with commercial lettings, contractor coordination and stakeholder liaison.

  • Snagging and developer support
  • Contractor coordination
  • Facilities management oversight through Seeasa
  • Procurement and compliance support through Seeasa
  • Commercial lettings
  • Resident and owner liaison

Referred by CBGA Robson, a relationship going back to the start of Botan’s property career and still producing instructions nearly twenty years on.

Estate agency portfolio departmentResidential and institutional blocks

Property maintenance, refurbishment and specialist project delivery for the portfolio department of a national estate agency. Instructions are residential blocks, including estates held by institutional owners.

  • Planned works
  • Reactive maintenance
  • End-of-tenancy projects
  • Compliance
  • Refurbishments

Started small. A personal recommendation got the Group through the door and the first work was individual jobs of no great size. 3 years on it is a portfolio relationship, earned one job at a time.

Commercial property management supportCommercial and retail parks

Maintenance, refurbishment and project delivery for CBGA Robson, a London property management firm working in commercial: retail parks, commercial premises, and the commercial elements of a handful of mixed-use buildings. The relationship predates the work: Botan knew the firm from an office in the same building at the very start of his property career, and had already been working alongside them before he was handed a stalled rent arrears assignment in 2008.

  • Reactive and planned maintenance
  • Refurbishment
  • Project delivery
  • Contractor coordination

The longest continuous client relationship the Group has, and the source of introductions to others.

Current focus

What we are working on now.

What the Group is working on and actively looking for now, as opposed to what it has done before. If one of these describes a situation you are dealing with, it is worth a conversation.

Property and asset advisory

Buildings underperforming for operational reasons: poor maintenance history, unresolved defects, works that stalled and were never picked back up. What the asset needs, in what order, and what it should cost.

Facilities management oversight

Getting an FM operation to do what the contract says it does: specification, contractor selection, and the management that makes the difference between a schedule and a service.

Procurement and service charge reviews

Line-by-line review of what a building actually buys, what it needs and what it is paying over the odds for — then real tender exercises rather than renewal quotes. The most reliable saving available to any landlord or RMC.

Difficult refurbishments and project recovery

Projects with a complication in them: access, structure, a previous contractor’s work, or a scheme that has stalled and needs someone to take it over and finish it.

Commercial property and operator sourcing

Lettings, operator sourcing and asset improvement, including space that conventional agency has not been able to shift.

Support for investors, managing agents and family offices

Acting for owners, agents and private families on property and operational matters, where the missing ingredient is commercial structure and persistence rather than capital.

Current businesses and delivery partners

How the work is delivered.

Operating

MB Property Services

Property maintenance and facilities delivery

The operating business at the centre of the Group’s property work, trading since 2008. Maintenance, refurbishment and facilities delivery for residential and commercial buildings across London and the South East, with a particular appetite for the problems other contractors have handed back.

How the savings are actually found →

  • Reactive and planned maintenance
  • Refurbishment and making good
  • Property management for private clients
  • Procurement, retendering and cost control
  • Commercial lettings and operator sourcing

SafeContractor accredited

mbproperty.services →

Affiliate

MB Refurb Projects Ltd

Refurbishment and project delivery

An affiliate business handling larger refurbishment and fit-out projects, where the work needs a dedicated project structure rather than a maintenance response.

  • Refurbishment and fit-out
  • Project management
  • Contractor coordination

Website to follow

How the work comes in

Every client has come by recommendation.

Every client to date has come through recommendation, referral or an existing relationship — from people the Group has already worked for, and from the estate agents and managing agents it works alongside.

That is not a marketing position. It is simply what has happened, and it sets the standard the work has to meet: the next job depends on the last one being right.

Partnerships & opportunities

What we are looking for.

Botan invests his own capital and effort where operational improvement can unlock value.

  • Buildings with a problem nobody has got to the bottom of
  • Stalled or abandoned refurbishment projects
  • Service charge and maintenance contracts that are not delivering
  • Owner-operators looking for a commercial partner rather than an exit