Whilst other women like clothes and are drawn to trying them on for size, Diana is drawn to houses, and walking through their rooms to see how good a fit they will be for their occupants.

Whenever she goes on holiday, at home or abroad, she heads to the Estate Agents, to learn about the houses in the area. It is her job and her hobby.
 

Diana was born and brought up in Bangor. She attended the local comprehensive school and afterwards studied Archaeology at Lancaster University.

She then did the Common Professional law conversion course at Chester Law College, the equivalent of a law degree, followed by the Finals Course which qualified her academically as a Solicitor.

After Law College, while undertaking the practical training to be a Solicitor as an Articled Clerk for two years, she spent time in the London Law Courts, magistrates courts, County Courts and even a police cell, and prisons on occasion, covering crime, consumer law, contracts, wills and company law,  but decided that concentrating on houses was the way to go and when qualified, became a commercial conveyancing solicitor in Central London.

The money was good, but she always hankered after her former experience as a trainee, in a small firm in West London, dealing with ‘normal’ people buying or selling a house, rather than her more recent experience in London, acting for a corporate body Landlord letting to commercial tenants in a shopping centre near Manchester, or purchasing the council housing stock of an entire county, to put in the name of a housing association.

Eventually she returned to residential conveyancing and became a Partner in a firm of Solicitors based in Essex. She ran the Greater London/Kent branch and also the Croydon Branch while bringing up the couple’s first child.

These were busy times, and when the second child came along, Jim and Diana felt they had had enough of the ‘rat race’ in the South East and moved the family to Anglesey.

Their third child was born 7 days before they left.

Life was again busy for Diana, juggling 3 children at home while Jim commuted to London and abroad. But not busy enough because the following year twins were born. Where life for Diana had felt like juggling balls in the air constantly, now it felt like spinning plates, with always the risk of one plate crashing to the ground.

But this life was still not busy enough for Diana because when the twins were a year old, having sold their house in Kent, Jim and Diana bought the house they were renting, and there was enough money left over to buy a small house to let in Bangor.

They were amazed that the house let so easily. Later on in the year, they bought a larger 5-bedroom house, already furnished with students resident in it. Again, the enterprise went well.
 

Two years later, having previously been extremely cautious, Diana decided it was time to mortgage everything they had to the hilt, max out on their credit cards and buy more student houses, with the aim of Jim giving up his job in London and concentrating full time on the houses as a student letting business.

Seventeen years later the business has proved to be a resounding success, and the couple enjoy the day-to-day management of the business, Jim carrying out the maintenance side of the business, and Diana the rent, deposits, inventories, utilities and Tenancy Agreements.

 

They both especially enjoy interacting with the students and helping them with any issues concerning the tenancies.
 

But now with the business well established, and with her family about to fledge the nest, Diana has again sought a new challenge and she is currently employed part time as a conveyancing solicitor locally.

She says she does this as a rest from the family, and to keep her sane. She still looks after the paperwork of the business when not at work.

Jim was brought up in Dartford, in a close family, by his parents who both had emigrated from the west coast of Ireland to find work in the UK in the 1950’s. He is very proud of his Irish roots, and the warmth, good humour, and outgoing nature, of its people.

He graduated from the London School of Economics, having studied history and politics, in which he still has a keen interest.

After University and then Law College he worked for many years as a Parliamentary Researcher in the House of Commons.

Jim worked on a wide range of, constituency, backbench, Select Committee, and Front Bench matters, eventually focusing on Overseas Development. 
 

He then went on to work for an international NGO (Non-Government-Organisation), where he was Head of Research, focused on campaigning against, and prosecuting perpetrators of Crimes Against Humanity, and war crimes, in the Middle East. This involved interviewing torture survivors, and other relevant witnesses around the world, and liaison with leading lawyers, politicians and diplomats, from a range of countries.

Extensive international travel, including to war zones, was exciting, but not exactly conducive to bringing up small children. He therefore took a post locally as Strategic Analyst for North Wales Police, where he ran a team looking a Crime Pattern Analysis, strategic force-wide goals and threats.

 

However, war in the Middle East brought him back to research human rights abuses, with the prospect of live prosecutions.
Prompted by the fact that some of his small children seemed unsure who he was! he decided, once again, to seek work at home in North Wales. His energetic wife Diana, was keen to get into the property business, so he decided to change his life altogether, and work with her, to develop a range of student properties.

 

Given Diana’s detailed grasp of conveyancing and property law, and Jim’s detailed attention to the maintenance of the houses, the business soon became a great success. The couple prided themselves on having a friendly, and good-humoured relationship with our students.

 

"We learned a lot from two of our children, who went to Bangor University, and lived in one of our houses. Our son John, completed a Master’s degree in Electronic Engineering, and our daughter Juliette, completed her degree in Primary Education.

They taught us to be friendly and approachable with our students, to keep them informed, and treat them with respect. We have a philosophy that it may be “Our House, but your Home”.

For example, we do not call unannounced, but (especially during Covid) ask permission to access the house when we need to conduct repairs. We only use longstanding and trusted trades people who have a polite professional approach.

As we deal with matters personally, so we do not have emails about repair, or other issues, bouncing around a large corporation for days or weeks. I am in Bangor nearly every day, so, on request, I check issues, often on the same day, and arrange for the relevant trades person to come as quickly as possible.

We have, on call, our own plumber, electrician, builder, white goods engineer, and other specialists. They do not work exclusively for us, but as we give them so much work, and have built up such long, and trustworthy, relationships with them, they try to deal with our repair issues as soon as they possibly can.

As a result of this we have been nominated, in the last four years, as either Most Responsive Landlord, or Best Landlord in the Bangor University Student Landlord Awards (where students themselves vote for the best landlords in Bangor)."