My wife and I have purchased a ground floor apartment in the pretty Spanish town of Algorfa. We were initially sceptical about this as we had only visited the area twice and hoped that we were doing the right thing. We purchased our property with in July 2006 and completed on the Fontanna 111 in February 2007. We were very pleased with our purchase and the snagging list was completed very quickly with only one item remaining.

We settled in very quickly and have visited the area at least 5 times since our purchase, by ourselves and with friends. Our friends know why we purchased in that area as it is peaceful and still very green which reminds us of home here in Scotland. Algorfa has many Spanish and English bars, restaurants and a golf course - La Finca on our doorstep. The mayor of Algorfa puts on a fiesta in the summer and this ran for nearly three weeks this year which we really enjoyed.

There has only been one downside to buying in Algorfa and although we have read it many times in your articles, we, like so many others, thought that it would not happen to us and that is of course that we were robbed this July whilst we were out in the garden.

The classic robbery took place and that was that my wife's handbag was lying on the couch and someone entered our home (how they did this we still can't understand as you can't open the door from the outside without a key,) and took the handbag which contained our passport, driving licenses and sterling.

We were very lucky in that there are English people living in Algorfa and they helped us with finding an interpreter as the guardia civil are not interested in speaking to you if you can't speak excellent spanish. We also had to travel to the British Consulate in Alicante to buy interim passports in order for us to return home. Beware though, we contacted our travel insurance company who did not honour our losses as they were not in a safe. So guess what we are going to purchase on our next visit to Algorfa in December?

All is not doom and gloom though as when we returned to Scotland and sorted everything out eg. renewed passports and driving licenses, we calmed down and realized again how lucky we were to have such a beautiful home in a beautiful country. We have returned to Algorfa with friends twice since the incident and have had no problems. I guess that it's just about being careful just as you would back home I suppose.

We would still recommend that you purchase a property in Algorfa if you are looking for somewhere special. This is an up and coming town and in a couple of years will have all the amenities that you could need to really enjoy your holidays by yourself or with friends.