Panama and Guatemala are not the first names that spring to mind when you think of offshore tax havens and second passport jurisdictions for expatriation. Areas that probably spring to mind first are the salubrious locations of Monaco, the Bahamas or Switzerland. But these playgrounds for the rich and famous have been coming under attack recently from European government and in so doing so have left many to look further afield for their privacy.

One of the pitfalls in this has been though, that through the proliferation of information and services provided on the internet, the scammers are out in force. Their aim, to take your money and run. Due to the secret nature of many of the enquiries made, little or no recourse can be found once the money is lost.

The first rule that should be applied when looking for an offshore jurisdiction or service is to identify who you are dealing with. In terms of second passports or citizenship applications this should always be a licensed lawyer in the country you are looking to relocate to. Anything less than this and you will probably be waving goodbye to your money offshore, but into some-one else’s bank account! At least with a lawyer, you will know that they have been vetted by their countries authorities and there will be a procedure in place for recourse in the event of mal-practice.

The second rule which relates to citizenship or expatriation for tax purposes, is that you will be expected to appear in person when making an application. Not only this, but you will be appearing at a government office, a large building, flying the flag of the nation you are in. It sounds ridiculous to mention it, but there are so many tales of people who actually turn up in a country to apply for a passport and are taken to a little third floor office some-where in an obscure building and hand over their money after signing a few ‘legal’ documents.

The third rule is that your lawyer should always be present with you when the application is being made. He will be able to cover all matters regarding any assets you may be transferring into the country through offshore trusts or companies. In places such as Panama you are able to register under the ‘pesionada’ provision, giving you a multitude of discounts as a retired citizen. To do this you must show an income from a pension, trust or similar account. You can register at any age over eighteen as long as the income is sufficient.

I mentioned Panama and Guatemala at the beginning of the article because these are two of the lesser known jurisdictions for offshore tax havens. Saying that, Panama at one time had more offshore companies on its register than all of the Caribbean countries combined. Many of these were lost in the eighties when a combination of General Manuel Noriegas dictatorship and the formation of the first IBC companies led to a departure of many companies to the Caymans and Bahamas. Since stable government has been restored, Panama has once again become a prime location for offshore trusts and companies.

Finally with regards to second passports, there are a few no-nos to look out for and avoid. These include anything that purports to obtaining a diplomatic status passport, a passport from a third world African nation other than South Africa or an obscure nation that will require you to obtain a visa to enter a country like the USA or UK. Also avoid anything that involves marriage and adoption to enable you to obtain a passport. All these methods will put you in harms way should you attempt them. If you keep to the rules mentioned here you will safely find a lawyer in the country of your choice who will guide you successfully to your end goal. Good Luck and Bon Voyage!

About the Author

www.panamalaw.org are a Panamanian based law firm that specialize in offshore trust and offshore bank account formation. For information on residency and obtaining a second passport Panama Legal can guide you through the legal procedures.

There are literally millions of holiday home owners now advertising on the internet. Some people set up their own website and just sit back and hope that they will be found by prospective holidaymakers looking for their vacation property. After a while they start to realize that there is a little more to getting seen on the internet than just creating a website.

The next step for most is using one of the myriad of advertising sites to create a listing. With many of these they are attractive to look at and after about an hour of work you have a respectable listing showing your vacation property or villa in its best light. Once again they sit back and wait for the inquiries to pour in. Once again they are disappointed.

The fact is there are several things you should do if you are a villa or apartment owner if you want your property to be seen on the internet. One of the things not to do, is to sit back and think that things will happen all by themselves.

As a quick guide to getting your property seen on the internet, we will fore-go the setting up of your own website. If you are a novice at things such as SEO, (if you dont know what SEO stands for then your a novice!) and move straight onto where to list your property and how to get your listing seen by the most people.

The first thing is to choose the site to advertise your rental with. There are many ways to do this but I recommend two fairly standard procedures to follow.First make a list of all the keyword search phrases that you would use if you were looking for a villa to rent in its location. A keyword phrase is the words or phrases that you would type into the search box if you were a holidaymaker looking to book a rental.

For example if I had a villa in Moraira, Costa Blanca, Spain I might come up with a list that included the search terms, Moraira, Moraira villa to rent, holiday villa in Moraira, Moraira villa rentals etc. Make the list as long as you can and even ask a friend or two to repeat the exercise. Remember to include general terms as well. Sometimes these can be the most search phrases that actually get the most traffic. For the example above, the top searched terms include, villa rentals spain and villa rental Spain, Spain rentals and rentals Spain. Once you have made your list, put it to one side because you will need it later.

Now you will need to use some tools that will show you where people actually search and in what volume. The key to successful advertising is getting the maximum number of visitors to your listing page. This is best done by first using a site that receives a lot of traffic for the type of property and the area you are renting in. The best single tool to use is the Google Keyword tool. To find it just type ‘Google keyword tool’ into your Google search.

here you will be able to type in some keyword search phrases from your list to find out where people actually search. The tool will give you the terms with the most volume on average and the volume for the previous month. Start working through your list of general and more specific terms ranking them in terms of actual search volume. You should then end up with a list for the most searched terms by volume for the highest traffic general terms as well as your localized search terms.

Now go to Google and type in the highest traffic terms. make a note of the websites that appear on the first page results for each term. What you are ideally looking for are the websites that cover not only the high volume general terms, but also rank well for your local keyword searches. Once you have been down the list you should start to see a pattern of which sites rank well in all areas. If not, then look to split your advertising between a mixture of sites that provide high traffic and those that provide more localized result rankings. Remember to avoid the Pay per click sites that advertise at the top and bottom of the page and down the right hand margin. These sites pay a fee to advertise on Page 1 of the results page. If their advertising budget runs out then so does the traffic to the site. The organic results are most likely to give you stable traffic in the long term.

You should now have a list of maybe half a dozen potential websites to choose from. To decide which ones to choose will depend on a number of different factors that will be covered later.

About the Author

Neil Ebsworth is the founder of AMLASpain, the Spanish MLS for property Spain and holiday rentals Spain

Property markets on the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca have seen sales stall in recent weeks as the value of the Euro has effectively wiped out price savings made in Euros during the recent market correction.

Property markets across Europe are waiting for action from the European Central Bank, (ECB) following moves by the Federal Reserve in the United States to cut interest rates for third time. The move by the Fed which is directly related to the property crisis in the US has seen the US currency weaken even further against the Euro and sterling, following no reciprocal action by either the Bank of England or the ECB.

Whilst moves by the Fed are independent and some would say that indicators in the Euro zone economy are not yet reflecting as large a slowdown as seen in the US, the strength of the Euro against all major currencies is having a knock on effect causing higher energy prices as well as stifling a property market that could do with a little help to stop into sliding into collapse.

The effect of the stronger Euro can be most dramatically seen in the Spanish Property market which has been struggling to keep its head above water for nearly three years. Following a sustained period of growth up until 2004/5, the market initially saw a correction in prices as rising interest rates started to dry up demand. With the recent strength of the Euro in the past couple of months, this price correction has all but been wiped out for the largest market for buyers, the British, who now are also beginning to feel the fallout from the credit squeeze which originated in the US, but whose effect was witnessed by the collapse of the Northern Rock Bank and a slowdown in the domestic property market.

Whether the ECB will act during its meeting in April is yet to be seen. It has in the past been slower to react to market indicators than other central banks. Part of the reason for this has been the diversity of economies that it is trying to control. It is difficult to set monetary policy in the Euro zone without having different results from different member states. Unfortunately the members of the Euro economies are not necessarily all on the same economic path and the ECB may have to wait until recessionary pressures across the whole zone are clearer, before it finally acts.

This was always seen as one of the downsides to the Euro when it was first set up. The convergence of the economic indicators necessary to join the currency was no guarantee that the members economies would stay on the same path. Mobility of labour being just one of the factors that would hinder the economic parity across the region. This hampers any decision making by the central bank as it tries to stay politically neutral when making fiscal policy. Any policy that has a negative effect on one members economy over another could be seen to have been made under political pressure or bias.

The result is that, by the time the bank has enough indicators in its favour to make a decision to act that will not anger some of its members, it may well be a case of the stimulus door having been shut after the recessionary horse has bolted. Whether the current situation turns out to be such a case will only be determined retrospectively. In the meantime, property markets across the Spanish Costas must hope that the general indicators of a slowdown catch up with the feeling all to evident in their industry now.

Neil Ebsworth is the founder of AMLASpain, the MLS for Spanish Property including Costa Blanca Villas for sale and Costa del Sol properties

Following a rise in interest in January, property purchasers looking to buy a holiday or retirement home on the Costa Blanca coast in Spain have been discouraged from completing on their purchases due to the increasing strength of the Euro against the pound.

The Euro which has been gaining strength not only against the pound, but against a weakening US currency, has come under increasing pressure to follow the US lead and cut interest rates to ease pressure on property markets world-wide as well as the spiraling cost of crude oil.

Problems for the ECB lie in the fact that the Euro zone economy has not seen economic indicators as strong as those in the US that a serious slowdown is on the way and have been retiscent to cut interest rates until more definitive signs are reported. Part of this problem could lie in the fact that the Euro zone economies are not yet homogeneous enough to warrant the single picture scenario. It could be seen that any interest rate cut would be more of a political move which may end up hurting some member countries economy at the expense of others. This was always going to be a problem with the Euro zone, where mobility of labour has been an issue.

With so many languages involved, it is much more difficult for the Euro zone workforce to cross borders and language divide to find jobs in another geographical area of the Euro zone. This means that pockets of unemployment appear next to areas of near full employment in a given industry or sector. Normally, as you would find in the US, a worker would be able to move from the East to West coasts to fill job shortages. In the Euro zone this does not happen leaving divergent economies being governed by one central banking policy.

As far as it affects property markets, the 10% depreciation of the pound against the Euro has all but wiped out any correction in Euro based property prices in Spanish coastal areas, which have been suffering from a correctional downturn for nearly three years. Popular resort towns such as Javea, Moraira and Calpe had seen some increased interest in property for the first time in more than a year. Since January though, the appreciating Euro has meant that prices for British residents, who make up the majority of purchasers, have effectively risen in real terms.

Hope now rests with the European Central Bank cutting interest rates to bring the exchange rates more into line with historical norms. Otherwise the market will continue to drive agents out of business at a rate never before seen. The lack of business in the sector is not only in the Costa regions of Spain. The domestic economy has seen share prices in construction company stocks plummet over recent months. Fears of over supply in the industry have driven stocks lower on the back off the weakened demand.

About the Author

Hot Property Spain are a local specialist agent dealing in Moraira Property. Also specialist in Javea Property & New Development properties in  the Costa Blanca.

The Federal Reserves latest cut in its prime rate by three-quarters of a percentage point may do little to assist home owners across the country who have built in fixed rate mortgages. It will however add stimulus to first time borrowers as interest rates start to reflect in some of the lowest mortgage rate products for several years. The reduction in the prime rate which now stands at 2.25% will also put further pressure on the dollar, weakening it against the major world currencies specifically the Euro, which has been gaining in strength almost as quickly as the dollar has been falling.

There are several repercussions to a weaker dollar, not least the resulting rise in the price of oil. US households already struggling with higher gas prices have been economizing in their spending patterns. It is this cutting back that has fueled speculation that the US economy is heading into a recession. A recession, that many believe has already arrived. But with the definition of a recession being at least two concurrent quarters of negative growth and the last figures released for the final quarter of 2007 showing 0.6% growth, it may be more realistic to paraphrase Mark Twain, that in relation to the economy, ‘ Reports of its death may have been over-exaggerated’. The dramatic fall in growth from 4.9% in the previous quarter cannot however be ignored, and if the downward trend continues at the same rate, then a recession may be declared by mid-June.

To rescue the economy, or for the cynically minded, to rescue the republican candidate, John McCain in Novembers election, a stimulus package including up to an $800 tax rebate will take effect in April. The package is supposed to boost consumer spending but the overall effect maybe solely to allow the administration the breathing space it needs to delay announcing that the economy, has in fact gone into recession. The influx of $1.5 trillion dollars into the economy should be enough to keep the statistics in the positive for at least a quarter leaving room for the administration to declare that by definition, the country is not suffering from the big R.

Like most things though, with every economic cycle there will be winners as well as losers. Whilst many of us whine about higher gas prices, food prices and energy costs, the lowest interest rates for nearly a generation will allow some to enter the housing market at a time when locking in their finance may stand them in good stead for the next twenty years.

When Donald Trump is quoted as saying that there are plenty of excellent investment opportunities available in the current real estate market, it is worth taking note. This aside, homeowners who can afford to, may also be attracted into the mortgage refinance market. With interest rates so low, the closing costs of refinancing a home loan in relation to the long term benefits of a fixed home loan at such low rates, now makes refinancing a serious option.

The problem that you may still have to be overcome in refinancing your mortgage is finding a suitable lender willing to loan money depending on your credit status. Mortgage lenders who have been seriously hurt by the sub-prime crisis and are finding it increasingly difficult to raise funds on the secondary market leaving less funds available to lend as mortgage finance. The result of this being, lenders have tightened the criteria for loans. Funds have been so scarce that the Federal Reserve has had to inject billions of dollars into the system just to keep the cash flowing around the market. This liquidity issue means that whilst interest rates may be favorable, finding the funds to borrow may need some serious leg work.

Whatever your circumstances, the economic road ahead may be rocky. If you are able to find cheap mortgage finance or refinance and take advantage of the current situation whilst interest rates are low, you may just emerge down that road in a stronger position.

In todays uncertain times, that would be a good result by any standard.

About the Author

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