Retiring to Florida..........

[markhula]

Hi All,

Read plenty about moving to Florida i.e. buying a business etc.etc, this seems to be the best way to get in!
But what about retiring? i.e. don't need a job, perhaps have income from some other investment.....

Is this looked on favourably?, what are the rules for this type of residency?

thanks in advance

Mark

[george]

I'm pretty sure that retiring is not an option at the moment unfortunately.

Pamela

[pieman790]

Think about how much the medical insurance would cost you.

[CERICROWLEY]

Mark

I think you have to prove you have a substantial amount of money behind you.

[Carla]

You cannot retire to Florida unless you are an American or have permanent residency already. There is no retiree type visa for non-resident aliens. The only way that you can live there year round is to work there, generally as the owner of the business that you work for, and you have to invest a lot of money and employ Americans.

You can go to your home for 6 months at a time providing you get a B2 visa. They are also getting very strict about, and are stopping people who stay for 6 months, from then nipping across the border and trying to get back in for another 6 months.

[luckylady]

The American government have now introduced a way you can rerire to America without buying a business

The government want you to invest $500.000 in property in a rundown area of their choice (you can't live in the property )for 5 years guaranteeing 7% return on your investment
After 5 years you can sell your investment
You will then receive a green card
If I can find the link I will post

[Cruella DeVilla]

You could always spend 6 months there and 6 months in Europe, chasing the sun!

Crikey Barabara, be interested in that link, but where is Jo average going to find that sort of money to invest with no return for 5 years and that's if you can sell it!

[Carla]

That's what we're hoping to do, only we will be chasing the snow during the Winter for some skiing.[msnsmile2][msnsmile2]

I read about that scheme Barbara, but I don't think that the guarantees are as guaranteed as we might hope.
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Cruella DeVilla
You could always spend 6 months there and 6 months in Europe, chasing the sun!

[/quote]

[Robert5988]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Hi All,

Read plenty about moving to Florida i.e. buying a business etc.etc, this seems to be the best way to get in!
But what about retiring? i.e. don't need a job, perhaps have income from some other investment.....

Is this looked on favourably?, what are the rules for this type of residency?

thanks in advance

Mark[/quote]

As stated above you cannot retire to Florida.

However, if you are solvent enough, it is not difficult to spend most of your time in Florida if you can convince the authorities that you will never become a burden on Uncle Sam.

[Snapper]

That's the EB 5 visa isn't it Barbara?

I'm not sure that the 7% return is guaranteed. I think that's the catch. If it were it would be almost too easy to get your green card. You'd just mortgage the half million dollars in the UK say (probably at 6%) and then deposit it against the EB 5 scheme at 7%. You'd actually make a percent while borrowing the money to get your green card.

Could be interesting to see how this visa develops though. I think it's still pretty new at the moment.

[esprit]

This is EB5 though packaged up with a twist. Very few people got through with the old EB5 and we will have to see how this less stringent one goes, there are people going through the pipeline with it now. It is certainly the only option for retirement unless you qualify for a green card under some other head, the alternative is E2 and you can never retire on that, but will have to work until you drop, unless you employ a manager to fritter away your profits!

I found an article on the new style EB5 online a few months ago, am cut and pasting it below.

"EB5 Visas allow retirement
First UK couples secure US 'retirement' visas
For those looking for freedom to work in whichever way best suits them - or even to retire to the US, the EB-5 job-creation investor visa is once again the immigration route of choice, writes visa advisor Richard Robinson in Going USA - January/February 2005
The first UK applicants for US visas under new rules which effectively enable people to retire to America have been approved. They will be the first people to emigrate to the US for investment related retirement since the aspect of the EB-5 visa that enables this, was withdrawn in 1998.
First introduced in 1996 before its withdrawel two years later, the 'indirect employment' aspect of the EB-5 was re-introduced as a five year programme in December 2003 when President George W Bush signed off the new legislation.
This rule change has made it easier, not just to secure any visa, but to apply directly for a Green Card, which provides a lifetime's Legal Permanent Residency for the applicant, his or her spouse and any offspring under the age of 21. They do so without the usual requirement of having family connections, securing a job or running an actively traded business - making it an ideal route to retirement The 'freeing-up' of the EB-5, an investment visa for the purposes of job creation, no longer insists on the direct employment of ten people but qualifies you if the investment 'indirectly' stimulates employment.
This allows investors to make a more passive type of investment into commercial real estate, rather than managing an actively trading business.
To comply with the law, a minimum investment of $500,000 is required (approximately £270,000 at the current rate of exchange). Furthermore, the investment must be in a 'Regional Centre' - an area which has been approved for immigrant investor capital by the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS).But what sort of investment can be made and how does the investor prove the employment will be indirectly created?
It is theoretically possible to find your own investment and to comply with the rules, but in practice it has proved extremely difficult. I have had many conversations with experienced business executives but have yet to find any one of them who has achieved it. In the end they have opted for a structured immigrant investor programme which has a proven model and which has already been accepted by the USCIS.

There are numerous obstacles. The chances of a regional centre being near enough to where you want to live is unlikely, and finding a suitable investment without it requiring a level of investment that is under the minimum or over the maximum is also a challenge. Most people want a business they understand and, since the EB-5 doesn't require that the investor employ people directly, the whole DIY process rather defeats the object.
There are currently four structured immigrant investor programmes formed specifically for EB-5 visa applicants. The companies concerned are offering either commercial properties or managed farm investments.
It is up to each visa applicant to select a programme, although professional investment advice can be sought. However, to date, all UK investors have chosen the same programme. This is probably because it offers freehold commercial properties and has been doing so to both immigrants and non immigrants (local Americans) for around ten years, whereas the other offerings are relatively new.
The company in question specialises in bu

[Robert5988]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote: That's the EB 5 visa isn't it Barbara?

I'm not sure that the 7% return is guaranteed. I think that's the catch. If it were it would be almost too easy to get your green card. You'd just mortgage the half million dollars in the UK say (probably at 6%) and then deposit it against the EB 5 scheme at 7%. You'd actually make a percent while borrowing the money to get your green card.

Could be interesting to see how this visa develops though. I think it's still pretty new at the moment.[/quote]
I think you have it absolutely correct.

An investment of $500k in these structured immigrant schemes is simply a way of ‘buying’ a green card, and my guess is that you are more likely to lose on your investment rather than get a return of 7%.

That said for some people it would be a small price to pay for your green card with the advantages it can bring.

It would be interesting to know the criteria the US Embassy apply before approving applicants. I suspect that you would have to convince them on interview that you had substantial assets and were unlikely to require any support –medicare etc – when you obtained a green card.