Meet Kevin Daniells: the director bringing Principle to the south coast

This month we’re welcoming Kevin Daniells to Principle as our new Director for the south, based at our new office in Fareham. Kevin's appointment marks the next step in Principle's national expansion and the beginning of a significant presence along the south coast.

A career built on doing things differently

Kevin's passion for property was sparked at the age of 10, inspired by the estate agent in a brand new BMW who sold his parents’ house. Kevin says “I was just always interested in property. I thought – I’m going to do that, I’m going to have the new BMW! So as soon as I left school, I joined a company on the Isle of Wight who sponsored my brother Chris and I to study surveying at university with a work placement during the summer months. The property market really took off in the late 80s so I went down the sales route and opened my own estate agency in 1994”.

Kevin quickly developed a reputation for quality of service, expanding into residential lettings, estate agency and block management. The business was sold in 2008 and he spent the next decade living and working in Spain, where he raised his family, and ran a property consultancy and estate agency serving expats across the Valencia region.

On returning to the UK, Kevin joined his brother at Daniels Harrison Chartered Surveyors, where he took over the property management department and quadrupled its turnover in five years. The business was acquired by a larger group and Kevin decided the time was right for a fresh start.

Why he chose Principle

When Kevin started looking for his next role, he was clear about what he wanted: "I wanted to be part of what I consider a family firm, where everybody is looking out for everybody else. I met Joe and we were bouncing ideas around for well over the allotted time. Principle felt like the right fit”.

Kevin is opening our new office in Fareham, a location he knows well. It’s ideally placed with good transport connections; the railway station a mile away and easy access to Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester.

His remit covers a substantial stretch of the south coast, from Saltdean near Brighton to Seaton on the Devon coast, taking in some of the most active and fastest-growing residential markets in the country. Portsmouth and Southampton in particular are undergoing significant regeneration, with a surge in new residential development creating real demand for quality property management.

Kevin's approach to building the southern portfolio is rooted in the same philosophy that has served him throughout his career: relationships first, quality always, growth through word of mouth rather than volume for its own sake.

He will be building a team in Fareham who fit into the Principle way of working: “At the end of the day, you are dealing with somebody's largest investment, and it’s often their home too. Customers want a quick response, and they want to deal with the same person over time. I like continuity of staff, not just for the business but for the client, so you can build a relationship”.

Turning negatives into positives

Kevin prides himself on bringing communities together. At Grand Ocean in Saltdean, a striking Art Deco building of 390 homes, he inherited a scheme that was in poor condition, with no fire risk assessment in place and residents facing soaring insurance costs as a result of cladding issues. Many were trapped: unable to sell, unable to remortgage and stuck in one and two bedroom flats having started families. Kevin secured £24 million in government funding for the building making it one of the first schemes in the Brighton area to achieve this outcome.

"I’m really proud of navigating the legislation to achieve this outcome and when I go there now, residents will thank me personally," he says. "That is what property management should feel like. Turning a negative into a positive -  that's what gives me the real buzz."

Next steps

We are very glad to have Kevin on board, and we're looking forward to everything the south coast chapter of Principle's story has in store.

If you are based along the south coast and would like to talk to Kevin about your property management needs, we'd love to hear from you.