The Collective Reviews 72

I had a very disappointing experience with Old Oak Collective.

I paid a deposit for a room after being clearly assured that it would be fully refundable if I decided not to proceed. Within a few days, I informed them that I would not be taking the room and requested my deposit back.

That was now over three weeks ago.

Since then, I’ve had to chase multiple times, only to be told that their “accounts team” takes up to 20 days to process refunds — meaning I’m expected to wait even longer for money that should have been returned promptly.

This is extremely frustrating and feels unreasonable, especially given the initial assurances. Holding onto someone’s deposit for weeks after they’ve cancelled, with no urgency or clear communication, is not acceptable.

Because of this delay, I’ve been unable to secure another property as I need those funds for a new deposit.

Overall, poor communication, slow handling of refunds, and a very stressful experience. I would strongly advise others to think carefully before handing over any money.

I am writing this review to document a pattern of inappropriate conduct and declining professionalism at The Collective Old Oak, so others can understand what has happened over time rather than seeing this as a single incident.

I lived at The Collective Old Oak for around two years. For most of that time, it was a good place to live. Staff were polite and professional, and I had no issues. The problems only began after changes in on-site staffing and management.

How It Started

The situation began with rude and mocking behaviour from a staff member, Lamaya. During an interaction in the building, she made comments about my clothing, mocked my laugh. This happened in a shared space and felt disrespectful rather than light-hearted.

Because I believe in addressing issues directly, I later sent her a calm message explaining that the remarks about my shirt, the mocking of my laugh, and the dismissive behaviour were not acceptable to me and that I expected basic courtesy going forward.

Instead of improving, the behaviour escalated.

Derogatory and Personal Remarks

After this, Lamaya made derogatory comments about me, including remarks along the lines of “look at him, he thinks he owns the place”, simply because I politely greet people in the building. Normal, friendly behaviour was treated with hostility and resentment.

Alongside this, there was a separate and very uncomfortable pattern of repeated personal remarks. On multiple occasions, across different days, she asked me questions such as “Am I pretty?” and “Do I look pretty?”. These comments were unsolicited, repeated, and not related to her role. I did not encourage or reciprocate them, and they made me uncomfortable. Repeated personal remarks of this nature cross professional boundaries and created an unpleasant atmosphere.

Management Response and Escalation

I raised these concerns with the on-site manager, but felt my concerns were minimised rather than properly addressed. As a result, I had no option but to escalate the matter to Tom, the Regional Manager.

To his credit, Tom intervened appropriately. Following his involvement, staff behaviour improved noticeably, which strongly suggested the concerns raised were valid. For a period, things returned to a professional standard.

While I was still resident, I was also approached by other residents who independently complained about similar treatment from the same staff member, confirming this was not an isolated issue.

Final Incident – 8 January

On 8 January, after moving out on 1 January, I returned to the building at around 9:55 a.m. to collect mail and to wait briefly before a 10:10 a.m. haircut appointment with my barber, who runs a rent-paying business on the first floor.

While waiting near the restaurant area, I was again approached by Lamaya in a manner that felt confrontational and unnecessary, despite my legitimate reasons for being there. The interaction upset me enough that I chose to leave immediately.

As a result, I missed my haircut appointment (causing a business in the building to lose custom) and left before dining, meaning the restaurant may also have lost business. This happened after earlier regional intervention, suggesting the underlying issues had not been resolved.

Overall Impression

The atmosphere at The Collective Old Oak has changed significantly. What was once a welcoming and professional environment now feels uncomfortable when concerns are raised. The fact that behaviour improves only after regional intervention, and then later resurfaces, points to a deeper management issue.

Until management:

Enforces professional boundaries consistently

Addresses inappropriate conduct properly

Prevents selective targeting or retaliation

I cannot recommend The Collective Old Oak.

This review is shared so others can see the full context and pattern of events, not just a single moment.

Don't bother signing up if you are on Universal Credit as they refuse anyone who's in receipt of it.

Hello on Earth,
I have been here for the past 2 months. Events are scams; they only take place at the beginning of Sept'24-Dec'24, and then nothing happens. Both salespeople are liars and sell fake information. The GM is the dumbest guy in the world and has no idea what's going on. The community manager, who is also one of the salespeople, has no experience, and I doubt they have any qualifications as they lie over and over again.
My experience has been quite disappointing. The Wi-Fi speed is consistently below 1 Mbps, and the radiators don't seem to work properly. There's a noticeable unpleasant smell throughout the property, and the overall condition of the place feels old and poorly maintained. There is a discount on rent if you give a positive review, which explains why most of the reviews are from people leaving this place or who have left within a few months of their contract.
Additionally, the management, administration, and operations team have been quite rude and dismissive. When I raised concerns, there was no response for months, and when I followed up, I was met with an eviction notice. The sales team seems more focused on making promises rather than delivering on them. While you're treated well when you're new, the treatment noticeably declines over time. Sadly, this has made the experience here quite frustrating and uncomfortable.

Overall, it was a pretty positive experience. The best thing about the accommodation is the travel links. The price is okay, but it is arguably high given the area and facilities. However, you can't complain too much. Staff are friendly, especially management. I had some issues during my tenancy and the management team were accommodating and offered a helpful, tailored solution which made me feel very comfortable. My deposit was also returned swiftly, and any issues I had during my tenancy were dealt with by the credit control team. Again, great staff, ok building and location, good travel links.

Would not recommend.
I was living in london, went to move in to the collective where I was told my room was not ready due to an error in their system. I emailed the company multiple times to try and rectify the issue, and received a response nearly A WEEK later. I had no where to live and had to stay in work accommodation.
Once I moved in, I found that the hot water NEVER works, the wifi and the lifts are slow.
If you have any issues/queries there is absolutely no easy way to contact anyone. The receptionists are lovely but if you come with a query, you’re told to email the generic email, which I had to do every day for 3 weeks to try and get a response. There is no one to directly speak to, it’s a faceless company.
I stayed for 6 weeks of my 3 month tenancy and then decided to leave early. I’d rather pay 2 rents together then stay there. The other tenants I spoke too are trying to leave early too.
The idea has such good potential, but the reality is awful.
I would not recommend.

Lavina & Patrycja have been very helpful today to sort me out with all the issues that I had regarding my room & other facilities that collective have to offer. Amazing solution based individuals. Cheers to them

This company is a total spam!
we booked a family portrait; on the day, my husband was tested positive for Covid. As courtesy to the service provider, we stayed home and canceled the session. Emailed, called, texted to multiple people from the company and nobody is responding. They just charged the session on my cc and never got back to us!!
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!

Please do yourself a favor and don’t get any close to these fraudsters. They didn’t pay me back an amount they owe me from the rest of my rent altough they told me they will process the payment. You can’t reach out to them and they won’t reply to you.

This company has been holding over 1000 pounds of my deposit for months and refuses to return it without stating any reason. STAY AWAY.

Kulisha at reception is really nice and supportive. She helped me a lot and she is always patient. Once she helped me fix the printing machine and it saved my ass.

Abdo dada promised over a month ago he was gonna refund my £360. I am due to have a surgery soon and I need every penny I can get back. I have rang him so many times, send text messages, sent email, rang the front decks nobody has reply me back I know they’ve taken a lot of peoples deposit but that wnt be my story. Stay away from (the oak collective)

If I could give 0 stars I would. I’ve emailed 20 times over the course of 2 and a half months regarding the return of my deposit. I haven’t received a single reply and they don’t answer the phone.

On top of that I terminated my contract early because there were silver fish in my room. Pest control came 3 times and it still didn’t solve the issue.

Lastly, the cleaner left a plaster filled with blood in my microwave and refused to accept responsibility. The team rather blamed this incident on me.

The reception team are clueless about everything. The manager Mantas is argumentative and doesn’t solve any issues. The entire team and system is a complete nightmare to deal with.

I’ve issued a court order to try and get my deposit back.

Resident: March 2022 - March 2023

The building was okay, but the landings need redecorating. The wallpaper is dark and dingy, light colours are enquired to make the landing more spacious, bright and welcoming. It can sometimes feel like you're walking around on a prison landing.

The building is cleaned throughout the day but can get truly filthy at night due to a few uncaring residents

The surrounding area is depressing to look at. It’s a giant building site due to HS2. If I’d known, I.e. done thorough research I wouldn't have moved here.

Although the en-suite rooms are small, there is plenty of storage space to speak of.

There are many communal things you can do should you choose to be social.

Staff: Pleasant and polite. I don't have a bad word to say about them. They do try to help you if you have concerns in their remit, they're able to deal with them at the time.

Cleaners: Do a great job, it's a hard task keeping the entire building clean.

Bills are included which is a blessing, however, the amenities are missing, often don't work and are lacklustre. There is no cutlery in the kitchenette to speak of, no kettle, no pots or pans.

Gym: A steal of £50 for the year! I often worked out, plenty of weights. At least one of the cardio machines would be out of order on occasion but it was a small price to pay.

Cafe: Made some amazing breakfasts but shut down approximately 2-months before I checked out.

Bar: was closed more often than open, it didn't seem to make a difference in the Summer months.

Wash bar: Cheap to wash and dry clothes, you can easily find available machines if you go at off-peak times. Irons and boards looked good in there although I never used them. A couple of ways to pay, if you're not into using your bank card to do it.

Wifi: often drops out, weak signal, often wires are cut by the workman. There's an outage for the entire building at least once a month. Support agents for wifi are often frustrating to communicate with.

Fire alarm: goes off often, during day and night hours, often due to residents' questionable cooking skills.

Drugs: There's an issue with a small number of residents smoking weed inside their rooms at night.

Rent: Residents are charged different rates depending on their circumstances. I was charged a lot for very little, in my opinion.

This is rated one star because credit control has so far failed to return my deposit to date.

It has been longer than 20 working days and they’ve failed to communicate with me.

I’ve sent a letter before court action to start the process of the return of my deposit.

Update: After sending several emails, one to the front desk cc credit control sending a letter before court action I received assurances via email that my deposit will be returned to me in full by Friday 13th May. If not I will proceed will court action, filing a claim at small claims court.

Due to this, their customer service gets a thumbs down from me.

Should the deposit issue be resolved to my satisfaction I will edit this review and give it an additional star.

They're a bunch of crooks. In addition to all the problems already reported by guests who left reviews and they are true, they do not return the deposit. They literally ignore emails and the staff is conniving, I don't know how anyone can work with these unethical people. A company that nowhere has a contact phone AVOID!!! The single number always goes to voicemail and they never call back!

Still haven’t received my deposit back, almost two months after moving out. Radio silence despite repeated emails!

it's good and nice environment people there are so kind and helpful

Stay away from this overpriced dump site. There is no security. There are literally homeless people that are allowed in and nearly assaulted one of the tenants. The homeless man in the photo slept in the room where the sauna is, for several days. The police had to come and escort the homeless man out after the tenant called the police. The staff didn’t even care. In other words, you pay insane rent for a shoe box that has no functioning lifts, super slow internet, and no security with people coming in and out without checks. Just stay away!

I lived here for over 2 years as an ambassador assisting with curating events and supporting the community and management. And for the first year, I had the most amazing time. It was a great place to live. Yes it’s a super tiny room (be aware- apparently this size room is smaller than a prison cell lol!) but with the right management of events and communal areas (for the right person), wanting to be part of a community- that doesn’t matter.

The first year, there was a great management team and you could see this in the high morale of all the staff and community. It was a really thriving great place to live. Then it was taken over and the new management are awful. You can see a huge difference in the standards really dropping and staff walk outs due to being treated so badly. I was pushed out of my ambassador role and had my rent doubled due to the new manager wanting to make changes.

What I loved about living here before was the sense of community and quality events to bring people together. And the communal spaces were great- from film nights in the gallery, to co-working and socialising in the various spaces.

Then with the new management the events slid to mostly boozy tacky things like beer pong parties. Which was a huge disappointment in comparison to what they used to be. (Sushi making, masterchef cooking classes, life coaching, crypto masterclass, cocktail making, silent discos etc).

The events do not reflect the rent you pay which are inclusive of them. And the communal spaces all took a dive too- really tatty and dated and constant issues with too little/too much air con and constant problems with the wifi.

All in all it is just not worth the money to live here anymore. It’s in a pretty bad area with a lot of crime and drugs were becoming pretty rife in the building when I left.

The sales team really upsell it and it’s a common thing that people aren’t made aware that they’re living in a huge HS2 building zone and there’s constant noise in most parts of the building. And all the rest of the issues like people being mugged and severe wifi issues when you’re trying to work from there.

*As an ambassador one of the jobs the new management asked us to do was get positive reviews off people just joining. A lot of these reviews are not reflective of people who have struggled living there. Because generally people don’t seem to review after leaving- which is why I wanted to show a true reflection!