My friend and I are both Vietnamese citizens interested in obtaining a passport through the Citizenship by Investment program. We have several business partnerships here in Vietnam and were wondering what would happen if we were to jointly invest in a number of real estate properties. Would this approach prohibit or complicate our ability to participate in the Citizenship by Investment program? What extra documentation might be required for such an arrangement?
Answers
I would like to inform you that investments for citizenship programme of Cyprus can be made either personally by the investor, either by his/ her spouse, or jointly with the spouse or jointly with any other person. You and your friend are allowed therefore to collectively acquire real estate properties. The minimum amount of real estate investments in order to apply for Cyprus citizenship is 2 million Euros so in the latter case of a collective investment, the minimum amount of the investment is 4 million Euros (2 million for each investor). You and your friend can invest even through a company in which you will be participating as shareholders or as ultimate beneficial owners. In that case the percentage of the investment that will be taken into consideration for each of you will be in proportion to your holding percentage. Also you can jointly buy a company which already owns real estate properties in Cyprus. In that case you will not pay transfer fees. The documentation that will be required is the same in all the cases above, except in the case of investing through a company or of the purchase of a company. In these cases we will need additionally the registration docs of the company that will show also your percentage as shareholders.
You have then right to invest jointly given that the right legal terms are used in your Contracts and/or Agreements as well as you prove that at least 2.000.000euros plus VAT (if any) has been transferred from abroad from each one of you.
Investing jointly in real estate assets would pose no problem to your citizenship by investment applications (subject to demonstrating a minimum investment of 2m euros per investor / applicant).
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