ABOUT

Plan B thinking as a backup plan only - early stage thinking

Considering a move - how to think about moving form one country to another

Take your business, finances and life global

Global structures and strategies

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Lifestyle, tax, business in foreign countries without residency

Residency and passport options

Low cost bite sized conversations and information to help with your process

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We share the knowledge and contacts gained in our own journey that took several years, to shortcut your process, and help you avoid common pitfalls. We also share our personal current assessments of global and specific country situations.

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My story: This is how my relocation journey began.

 

I began my relocation experience 30 years ago when I transferred with my job from New Zealand where I grew up, to the US, ending up in Los Angeles for the last 20 years, living comfortably in the hills of Los Angeles with vacation homes and boat - the "American dream."

 

  Five years ago I saw the world begin to change.  I saw a lot of things that just didn't seem to make sense. Many of my neighbors, doctors, business executives, investment managers - smart people, saw it also.   COVID hit. I saw rising taxation, money printing and inflation as probable outcomes and recalled the housing market crash of 2008, how many people were trapped in their homes for 10 years, and the large and long reduction in home prices that entailed.  I saw banking changes allowing "bail-ins" and I recalled the capital controls of the 1990's and China in the 2000's. I recalled Nixon banning owning gold in the 1970's and the stagflation and gasoline rationing of the 1970s as I was growing up. I saw the Ukraine conflict, extreme migration initiatives, continued money printing, and PE ratios of the stock market soar to bubble levels. My home insurance annual premium on my main home alone being $6,000, my cars $3,500, and my main home annual property tax more than $15,000, my medical insurance for myself alone $12,000. Looking towards retirement my base cost of living was high, and with the global changes, headed much higher.  Add to that concerns about food and water quality in the US with increased GMO, pesticides and chemical spills into waterways impacting cities and commercial farms. Plus standard of care and types of drugs being prescribed in the medical system.

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I started mapping out what I thought was going on globally, and investigating common strategies for global lifestyles and global tax strategies and wealth protection structures. ​

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I asked myself, what will the next 5-10 years in California, or anywhere in the US likely look like?  Where do the powers that be have us headed and is this likely to reverse any time soon?  I saw a combination of a rising cost of living, rising taxes, a rising need to work and earn more to meet the rising cost of living each month, yet an impending debt and everything bubble that threatened my saved assets, and an economy that in real terms had clearly been declining for years, and was ripe for a crash of epic proportions.  To boot, as inflation begins to rise, we will be taxed not only on real gains, but also on nominal gains reflecting nothing more than inflation.  I decided to accelerate my retirement planning and visualize what a better place to retire would look like.

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My goals were to be in a comfortable location with nice weather, modern conveniences that I could work globally, with a global banking and legal structure but also have a sustainable independent lifestyle, pleasant and close to nature where I was not relying on commercial food and water production, and where I would be left alone by politicians, the tax man would be light-handed, and be able to cross borders easily and change countries if the need arose. I also wanted to be out of the continental US and Europe and likely war zones.

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I began the extensive task of unpacking all the options, evaluating my reasons and criteria and creating a global plan to move my business, life and assets from the US and to make it global, while still retaining my ability to do business in the US. While there was certainly an element of wanting to distance myself from bad things, I viewed this as a positive challenge, to create my new dream life.  30 years ago I moved my life from NZ to the US.  Now was the time to take it to the next step to design my life as a global citizen.  My next big adventure. ​

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Puerto Rico: I established myself in Puerto Rico including setting up a new company, bank accounts, business licensing, mailboxes, apartment, home use permit, legal, accounting, regulatory, real estate, security contacts, plus a research assistant, and shipped 3 cars and dealt with registration and drivers licenses etc. I was granted my Act 60 incentive tax free agreement separately for me personally and my business. I was lucky to find, really the most beautiful place to live in Puerto Rico - an upscale gated community with 6 miles of coastline, a 160 boat marina, several restaurants and shops, a bank, a postal annex, and a beach club. My apartment was one block to a beautiful idyllic Caribbean beach, and beautiful weather year round, and daily turtles and iguanas sunning themselves in front of my balcony. I very much enjoyed my 3 years in Puerto Rico.  I have strong opinions on the right way to do Puerto Rico.  Some do it the wrong way, and as a result don't enjoy it.  I looked at buying properties on the Caribbean side and Atlantic side and farmland in the hills and there are attractive deals in places.  I made a few Puerto Rican friends.  I learned a lot and made a lot of great contacts for anyone interested in Puerto Rico.​

 

Dubai:  The reason I chose it was it is a recognized financial center outside of the US, with a solid banking structure, and while it is a US ally and cooperating in FATCA banking regulation, on the other hand it is a member of BRICS so a partial hedge against the Western banking system. Its currency is currently pegged to the USD, but it could be unpegged should the dollar hyperinflate.​ Dubai was fairly straightforward.  I was able to process my residency and set up my Dubai Free-zone company and handle all the processing and compliance.  It went probably the most smoothly of all my residencies, but nevertheless took a lot of time and planning, trips and structuring for things like bank accounts which are not simple to set up unless you know how the process works. But Dubai, is one of my favorite cities to visit, particularly the marina area where I spend my time, due to the modern clean safe environment, warm weather, polite people and everyone seems pleased and fortunate to be there. Price levels are generally below the US, although rising, and the beach is walking distance close, the pace is slow and people seem happy.  I love Dubai. It has a very unique, and I think positive feel to it. (We need to see how the current Iran situation plays out, but even during, my structure and banking are working fine)

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Costa Rica: With Dubai as my banking and business HQ location, next I looked for a sustainable nature/beach location to replace Puerto Rico as my home/remote work location.  I began making several visits to Costa Rica where I could leverage knowledge of friends who were already getting established there and had experience purchasing farmland. Costa Rica is easy to visit but very loose in lots of ways and little pitfalls and inconveniences mainly, to get your head around initially, but I leveraged a friend's relationship to gain access to a great real estate attorney with fluent English, got to know a few realtors, and looked at a lot of property there. A lot! So much I became friends with my CR attorney and his wife.  I set up a company to get a corporate bank account (as personal accounts for foreigners are generally limited to $2000 until you have residency).   You can get nice newly built homes in beautiful natural surroundings, but you have to realize you may have to drive a rough, muddy track every day to get to it and in the rainy season, at times there is a frequent feeling of constantly battling the weather in the rainy season as between 2-3pm daily would start heavy rain-storms for the evening.  Plus, the tropical weather makes for a lot of property maintenance. But in the non rainy season, and really year round it has many of the advertised aspects of a tropical paradise and is a popular location. Be aware the "red tide" of algae is visible in the ocean at certain times of year (not every day but periodically) giving surfers ear-ache and making the fish in certain areas and particularly shellfish less safe to eat.

There are many great things about Costa Rica that I do enjoy and I have many friends there, I love to visit, and for many people this is still a great solution. The answer will depend on your personal objectives.

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Paraguay: Which brought me to Paraguay ... which I did not expect to enjoy, but which I really did, where I found some familiarity in both the modern part of the city, and country farms, and where I live happily today, with my Paraguayan girlfriend, (who was my realtor on my apartment and also teaching at the university at the time). We live back and forth between my new-build high rise apartment in the center of the capital city Asuncion (2m pop.), and my 25 acre farm 3 hours out of the city.  And the drive is pleasant between them.  My goal is to make my farm fully sustainable and independent, should a second pandemic or similar event occur.  Asuncion (the Capital) is now being built up with high rise skyscrapers similar product to Dubai, and in my opinion, is very livable for westerners (in my opinion more so than Costa Rica - but depends on your preferences) in spite of not much English being spoken.  I was able to purchase both the farm and the 2+2 apartment city center, at a combined cost less than my first escrow in Costa Rica, and it provides a balance of city and sustainable rural living, warm weather, and one of the cheapest cost of living in South America. Plus a developing business environment as companies are attracted in by capital inflows and cheap labor and other opportunities. My first decision in Paraguay was to buy a new modern apartment, with 24 hour security and doorman as my new global "lockup" on leaving Puerto Rico - looking over the city lights and greenbelt, center of the newest part of town, brand new building, gym, laundry, rooftop pool, interior parking spot. 20 mins from airport, doorman to collect my packages when Im travelling, quiet side street, but 3-blocks walkable to 2 new modern malls similar to US standard, 30-40 restaurants and several western quality supermarkets.  (google Shopping del sol Asuncion, or Paseo la galleria Asuncion). Asuncion is easy to fly in and out of, no slow security lines, turn up 1 hour before the flight.  2 year residency is easy and cheap, and converting it to permanent residency not difficult.  I have settled in very nicely and in the process collected a team of lawyers, realtors, shipping and customs experts, and other contacts.  Cost of living is very cheap, real estate is very cheap, the pace of life is social and very comfortable, and people are just nice - they will generally try to help you if you cant speak the language well.  In the mid 1930's Paraguay was invaded by Brazil and Argentina and 90% of the adult male population wiped out, which lead to a generation of family units headed by women which I credit in part to creating the passive and family oriented culture you see today. The other part is that not much money is needed to survive, and there seems little unemployment, the weather is great and families help each other, so in generally people in Paraguay seem fairly happy. There are also large settlements of Germans, Japanese and others that have been here for at least 2 generations, and because of the weather, Paraguay is a holiday destination for many wealthy Argentinians and many have second homes here. Western level hotels common in city areas (less common in the countryside). At my farm, the neighboring farms are owned, by one American, one French family, a retired Paraguayan professional footballer, a retired professional fashion model, and two other Paraguayan families, one of which is on the city council. 

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In Paraguay I have now particular expertise as that is where I spend most of my time, and my girlfriend is Paraguayan - one of the few Paraguayan realtors that speaks English (and Spanish and Guarani), and has experience with both city apartments and also various types of farmland. Because we are independent and have a different process, we are able to target "no-middleman" deals the RE agent firms cant touch.

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We have also visited other countries, such as New Zealand, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, UK (would not recommend UK or Germany) and others. If your needs fall outside our expertise, we have contacts we can refer you to.

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Our services revolve around my approach, my experiences, learnings and extensive contacts I have gained in this process. Not just the places I landed, but the strategies and decision processes I engaged, and the many other countries I have researched and decided not to go to.

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My goal is to share the experience and knowledge I have gained at a cost that is affordable and helpful for the every-day person. The world is constantly changing and my goal is to provide a realistic view of the offshore alternatives, and methods to achieve your goals and help give you the best chance of achieving them.