Latest / Financial Survival Network / Residency vs. Citizenship, Elite Insurance and Thinking Outside the Box in Uncertain Times - Christopher Willis #6042

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Residency vs. Citizenship, Elite Insurance and Thinking Outside the Box in Uncertain Times - Christopher Willis #6042 · Financial Survival Network

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  But you know, there's a whole list of options, you know, arranging
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  from citizenship in the Caribbean to citizenship in the European Union, you know,
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  through the country of Malta, and which of course gives you settlement rights across
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  the European Union. So having access to those member states is attractive to some
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  people. Others just want to have citizenships somewhere. Just in case, you're
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  listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you just
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  can't find anywhere else to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial
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  Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get
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  your free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network now more than ever, And
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  welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,
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  Carrie Letz. It's four ten twenty four, just mentioning that we're a
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  third of the way through April and we've already been through an eclipse, multiple
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  earthquakes, civil unrest from coast to shining from sea to Shining Sea, and
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  you're wondering maybe maybe it's time to get out a dodge. Christopher Willis is
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  here with us now. Christopher, you are, hey, first of all,
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  a big fan of SNN FSN and we appreciate that. And hey,
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  you're an expert on overseas obtaining citizenship and residency overseas or thrilled to have you
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  eight as an American And where would be the first place I should look to
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  think about becoming a citizen of hekkery. Great time to be here and thanks
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  for having me. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. It's
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  kind of an open ended question because it does depend on on the you know,
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  each person's own motivations, the timelines, et cetera. And you don't
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  necessarily have to leave the US. It's more having an option to leave the
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  US just in case. You know how with the direction things are going,
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  certainly as we're built up into November, is a lot of nervousness from a
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  lot of people and wondering, you know, what one situation is going to
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  be, you know, in the next six months, nine months, five
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  years, et cetera. But you know, there's there's a whole list of
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  options, you know, arranging from citizenship in the Caribbean to citizenship in the
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  European Union, you know, through the country of Malta and which of course
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  gives you settlement rights across the European Union. So having access to those member
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  states is attractive to some people. Others just want to have citizenships somewhere just
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  in case. And there's also residency programs. You know, Portugal has been
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  extremely popular with Americans who are looking to have status somewhere where if they wanted
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  to go and hang out for a little while, they can, but it's
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  not necessarily getting them citizenship, although they would be on a pathway to citizenship
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  should they do enough time in the country. Okay, so yeah, so
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  explain residency versus citizenship because I know many of you out there don't really know
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  about that. Yeah, it's a great question. So, so residency would
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  be like having a green cart in the US, So you have permission to
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  stay essentially and definitely as long as you and you were it on a regular
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  basis, and if you spend enough time, you can graduate to full citizenship.
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  So the main difference by being a citizen is you have the right to
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  vote and you can hold a passport. So for many people is having the
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  passport or the citizenship that allows them to get a passport, which is sort
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  of the ultimate prize or the Holy Grail. Now, typically, you know,
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  for Americans, passport was very strong, passport recognized internationally, not a
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  big deal. But then you know, when the pandemic hit and at full
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  swing and there was a travel ban on Americans, it didn't matter who you
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  were. If you're only on an American passport, you weren't getting on a
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  plane to go to Europe or to go to Singapore, to go to the
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  UAE or anything like that. So, you know, Americans had their wings
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  clited, and we're well and truly grounded, and a lot of people we
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  speak to were saying, hey, we're exposed here, so we've got to
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  We've got to fill this gap and get another option just in case something like
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  this happens again. And so that realizes the exactly we the you know,
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  woke couple lot of people and said, hey, we need this because traditionally,
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  you know, these citizenship programs were for people who were coming from countries
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  that had very poor trava. So you're Nigeria and you're South African, your
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  Lebanese, you know, you're Pakistani. People like that. They always had
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  to get visas to go everywhere. So these people. It really was life
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  changing because they can now just walk on a plane and you know, go
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  to these places that they was it was challenging for them to go to in
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  the past. So I guess it goes back to my original point. It
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  does depend on the needs and the motivations of the people. For Americans now
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  it's you know, whether you spend it as a non traditional insurance policy or
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  a plan B. You know, it's it's just something that's now becoming a
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  necessity, you know, for the wealthy elite. Right, Okay, so
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  what's the cost involved, Well, it varies. So Caribbean citizenship at the
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  moment starting at one hundred thousand US if you go down to donation rooms or
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  there's real estate auctions as well, and if people wanted to say divest out
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  of the US, they can invest in one of these countries and you know
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  get that that too for you know, the two for one, get get
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  an asset, but also use that asset to qualify for economic citizenship. So
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  some people are looking at it from that angle because there's also a lifestyle element.
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  Many Americans are familiar with the Caribbean geographically very close, so you know,
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  they may want to go and have a beach holiday, you know,
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  when the weather gets cold, if you're up from uplands for example. So
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  that's the starting point is around one hundred thousand in the US. But I'll
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  put a little asterisk right there because there was a recent memorandum of agreement signed
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  by the five countries in the Caribbean that operate a Citizenship by Investment program where
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  they're looking to increase the minimum from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand US
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  and that's going to be They've ear marked to June thirtieth of this year as
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  the effective date for this to happen. So although it's one hundred thousand now,
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  that could double very quickly. So if people are interested, they should
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  start looking at this quite quickly because it will get more expensive. Okay,
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  so how more is all the paperwork to do? Well, the paperwork,
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  it's if you're a white citizenship is still there. They've got to know about
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  you, right, So it's the usual stuff of civil documents, you know,
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  birth certificates, margtificatest et cetera. Police checks, source of wealth,
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  source of funds is the key part. Just to make sure everything was legally
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  acquired and a variety of application forms so they can understand you as an applicant.
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  Because the due diligence is quite thorough, multi tiered, including obviously you
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  know, apart from public domain SUSH, it's a third party dependent due diligence.
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  Firms are going to verify the information you provide, and then you're also
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  got to have you know, you need to pull your a poll, sanctions
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  list, watch lists, all these international verifications will be done as well,
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  just to ensure that you're the right type of person. Who's who's coming to
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  the odds. Yeah, I don't want any sketchy people coming over, right,
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  No, exactly exactly, And just in the second part of your question,
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  you know, the cost of the Caribbean is there, but you know,
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  somewhere like Malta for a single applicants is around about a million euro.
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  But the difference being you're getting European citizenship in about eighteen months as and you
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  know you would cheat. I think we can comfortably say that's a higher value
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  citizenship than that of the Caribbean. And or you could go down the Portugal
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  route, which would be five hundred thousand euro but it's going to take about
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  eight years before you'd be able to become a citizen of Portugal. So,
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  you know, it's like most things of life, you get what you pay
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  for, right, So if you're looking for European citizenship quickly, you're looking
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  at the million euro price point. If you're happy to wait half of that,
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  and if you're happy with the Caribbean as your country and citizenship, then
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  it's it's one hundred thousand to start with. Okay. So if we look
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  in Asia, are there any opportunities in Asia? There's not a lot in
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  certainly in terms of citizenship. There are some residence programs. They tend to
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  be used more by Asian nationals who are looking to you, you know,
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  very much like in South America. You know a lot of South Americans want
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  to go to Uruguay or Paraguay, for example, so they want to sort
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  of stay within the region or their continent. But for the American we haven't
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  seen a big uptick of interest from Americans looking to go to Asia. Okay,
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  what about when we look at Eastern Europe maybe that's not part of the
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  EU. Are there opportunities there? Yeah, there's a good example would be
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  in the country of Ontenegro, which is you know, trying to ascend to
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  become a fully new member state, and they did have a citizenship program,
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  but they had some pressures from the European Union saying, look, if you
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  want to ascend, you're going to have to make sure that this program is
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  done unfinished. So there's we're seeing some interest from some other countries in Eastern
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  Europe, but nothing has come to light yet, but there could be some
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  on that of this year. Interesting any other countries EU countries. What about
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  Moldova or yeah, Moldov we did have a program, but that that sort
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  of die to death very quickly. Greece is very popular, but again that's
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  just a residency program that does not have a pathway to citizenship. But Spain
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  is becoming more and more popular. The Spanish program is actually has lower requirement.
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  It's you're a Latin American national or your parents Latin national, so anywhere
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  basically Mexico South. If you have that heritage, you can benefit from a
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  two year residency instead of ten years before being eligible for full Spanish citizenship.
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  But they're also going through a few revisions to their program at the moment,
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  so we may see some changes towards the end of this year as it relates
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  to qualifying for Spain. There's always a butt with these programs, Christopher,
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  you know there's always an if for whatever. Yeah, the joys of governments,
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  you know, change of governments. You know, in Portugal they had
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  a lot of pressure for affordable housing for the local Portuguese and that's what changed
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  their program and we're seeing a bit of that in Spain now as well.
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  So you know, immigration, no matter what country is a political football,
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  right and so you know that's never going to change. And again depending if
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  there's a change of government, that can impact their immigration programs as well.
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  Okay, what are some of the pitfalls when you go start doing this?
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  Well, I mean it's the benefits certainly have way in any risk here because
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  you know, in you either don't have to spend once you're a citizen,
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  that's saying the Caribbean, you don't have to spend any time. So the
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  passport's in your back pocket, you use it as when if at all.
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  Some people just like having the peace in line, knowing that it's there.
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  You know that the adage of it's better to have it and not need it
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  than need it and not have it. Right if you're looking to shame jurisdiction.
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  You know, the Americans, you still tax on your citizenship, right,
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  so if you were a Canadian or a brit there's maybe a tax play
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  here for you as well, but you know, not as much for the
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  American client. So it really depends on you know, lifestyle choices, knowing
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  you can get somewhere should you need it. Now, I'll give you an
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  example. So you know, during the pandemic again, there was someone who
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  had a you know, multimillion dollar property on the Caribbean island of Antigua and
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  Barbuda, and he thought, I'll just go hang out there, but he
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  never took out citizenship. He just used to keep coming and going as a
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  visitor. But because the Caribbean island is like many places, close their borders
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  to non citizens, he couldn't access his property. So it's just again many
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  many examples why there's more benefits to having this, and you're enhancing your freedom
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  so right, and this is really what it's all about. It's giving yourself
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  more options should you need them. And again this is where more and more
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  people are realizing it is becoming a necessity. I couldn't agree with him more
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  Hey, people want to find out more about you about how you can help
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  them. Is there a place you can go Christopher? Yeah, the best
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  thing is go to our website Latitude World dot com. My details are on
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  there under the team page information and all the different programs that are available.
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  And then we can take some time with you to understand you know why you're
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  looking to do, I understand your deeds, and then we can make some
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  recommendations of what would be the best fit. All right, excellent, Hey,
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  really appreciate you coming on. I've got a question for Christopher myself.
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  Email addresses always kl Atcarrie LUTs dot com. We've got a link to the
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  show. It's in the for this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com and
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  you just have to go there loock it and while you're there, sign up
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  for your free newsletter. Christopher, appreciate you coming on, but a pleasure.
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  We'll talk to you again soon. Thanks, Gerry, appreciate it.
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  Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying
• 12:20
  times. For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival
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  Network now more than ever