A few years ago when Jasmin Shaw trained as a travel counsellor, she had to draw a goal to visualise what she wanted to achieve. As someone who had long dreamt of moving to Spain, and loves art, she sketched a whitewashed townhouse brimming with flowers in the stepped narrow street of a typical pueblo. It became the icon on her bank app.
Well a month ago – in December 2024 – she and her husband Dave and their two children, aged 3 and 7, left their home in Warrington, northwest England, to move into such a house in the village of Competa, 18km from the coast in Andalusia.
“I’ve always been the driver for this to happen as I used to be a travel rep in Spain. I love the laid-back way of life and think we’ll spend so much quality time as a family,” says Jasmin, 38. “It’s been a journey to get here, but we are so glad we’ve done it.” Jasmin and Dave applied to A Place in the Sun to help them find a home with a budget of £130,000. With the help of another Jasmine they bought property five, a big four-bedroom townhouse that was on sale at £152k but they got for £130,500.
That was in October 2023 and whilst you might have seen their episode aired in January 2025, a lot has happened in between. Selling their home in Warrington, being refused a mortgage on the Competa house until they finished paying their UK mortgage, then moving into Dave’s parents’ home is the short version of the ‘stressful few weeks’. Applying for a digital nomad visa has been another adventure in its own right, but once the paperwork was all done, their application took just one week.
Then there was the house. They took a builder over when they completed the purchase and a few shocks were in store because it hadn’t been modernised for a few decades it needed completely rewiring, new bathrooms and a new kitchen but also some drastic repairs to the roof terraces.
“We knew it had been closed up for a long while as the Danish owners had used it as a holiday home and not visited for a year or so,” says Jasmin. “But both roof terraces had been leaking – one into the top bedroom. Tiles had to be taken up and redone. If the weather had been even worse – like the dramatic downfalls in Valencia – we might have been in a very bad situation.”
But they now have lovely new Spanish tiles on the terraces, a bespoke brick-built and timber new kitchen, new windows (like the wooden beams they had woodworm) and a new child-friendly staircase. “It’s more a case of what haven’t we done,” she adds. A renovation budget of £10-15k became £50k, but there are beautiful views of the mountains through their handmade new windows, and wine is only €2.50 a bottle, laughs Jasmin. “It’s chaos, there’s stuff everywhere but we’re getting there.”
Jasmin is joining a watercolour class and with WIFI installed they have both been working remotely – between everything else.
She says it “still feels slightly like we are on holiday” but when the children start nursery and school this month a new routine will slowly emerge. Saving £1,000 a month on UK nursery fees – the local village nursery is free - is just one of the many upsides of their new life in Spain. “Competa really does look like my picture.”
SEARCH FOR PROPERTY IN COMPETA
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