Buying Residency Or A Passport With Offshore Property

Aside from of fshore hedging, international residence and citizenship p lanning is top of mind for many locals.

- Glenda Williams

The attention of twitchy South Africans, reeling from the latest political fallout and credit rating downgrades, is once more turning to the safety net of residency or citizenship abroad.

Passport investment programmes or the “buying” of citizenship often comes at too high a price for the majority of global citizens, the mostly prohibitive outlays only within reach of the uber-rich.

Affordability constraints, though, have provided countries around the world an opportunity to attract investment and revenue through somewhat less expensive property linked residency investment programmes.

The appeal of these programmes for South Africans is multi-faceted: offshore hedging as a means of safeguarding or growing wealth outside SA; the safety net that a second residency or citizenship and home elsewhere offer; and expanded global travel freedom.

“Many families are buying into these programmes to provide their children with international opportunities and the option to study abroad. Most of the programmes require minimal visits and physical stay and this is what makes them so attractive to investors,” says Nadia Read Thaele, CEO of LIO Global, a specialist firm in residence and citizenship-by-investment planning.

Property-linked residency programmes like those offered by Mauritius and the Seychelles have offered an attractive route to second residency for many locals.

Today, Mauritius’s $500 000 residencyonly investment might not be as tempting as a $300 000 investment into, for example, Grenada, which affords the investor citizenship.

“Mauritius does not offer additional travel benefits. And Caribbean countries like Grenada or Antigua are cheaper. These countries also give you citizenship and a passport in four to six months and allow visa-free travel to the Schengen-zone countries, the UK and many others,” says Read Thaele.