#15 - Investment Migration and Financial Planning: Natural Bedfellows - John Hanafin on Mobility Standard

IMI Podcasts

The Mobility Standard podcast this week hosted John Hanafin, chief executive at Huriya Private, who spoke with us about the complementarity of investment migration and financial planning, both of which are fields in which he has extensive experience.

Timestamps

• 00:30 - Who is John Hanafin and what is Huriya Private?
• 05:45 - The complementarity of investment migration and financial planning: Can you plan for one without also planning for the other? Are the two realms best kept separate or will more firms begin offering these services in conjunction with each other?
• 17:04 - Balkan countries planning for CBI and which of them are really closest to EU membership.
• 19:57 - Why Ireland should have a CIP, why and how it should reform its IIP, and which other programs it should be modeled on.

Investment migration and financial planning: Joined at the hip

Many firms in the investment migration market choose to steer clear of providing advice on tax and estate planning, partly because they don't have the necessary training but also to avoid becoming subject to the stricter regulations pertaining to such practices. Questioned as to whether he thinks RCBI practitioners should also help clients plan for the tax and estate implications of partaking in investment migration programs, Hanafin indicated they were essentially two sides of the same coin:

"I think it’s mandatory [to plan for both together]. It shouldn’t even be a consideration […] I don’t understand how it can be just a transaction. […] There are people in the industry who are very good at what they do and who purely want to do [RCBI] and that’s it. And I’ve worked for people who have had that attitude, shall we say. "

"In Dubai, you can be selling bananas on Friday and passports on Monday."

"Maybe the guy comes to my office and says 'I own the office tower next door,' to which I might say 'oh great, how do you own it? In your individual name? Okay, well you understand this is a civil law country, not a common law country, and you have sharia implications of having assets over here. Perhaps that's something we can discuss alongside your passport,' and so on."

Hanafin comments that Dubai, in particular, is a place where clients can easily end up with advisors who are too narrowly focused on RCBI and who don't give due consideration to possible tax and estate implications.

"The issue with Dubai as a jurisdiction is that you can set up a specialist immigration firm in about 48 hours. You can't do that in the UK, for example, where you need to be a qualified immigration lawyer. You can't do that in most European countries. In Dubai, you can be selling bananas on Friday and passports on Monday."

North Macedonia and Albania "about five years ahead of Montenegro" on EU accession

"There are rumors about Serbia, there are rumors about Croatia, there are rumors about Albania," he says, but adds that there are some misconceptions as to which Balkan countries are closest to EU accession.

"Montenegro promoted themselves as the next EU country. But if you read the statutes and the laws, North Macedonia and Albania are about five years ahead of Montenegro."

Where would John Hanafin most like to see a new CIP open? In his native Ireland, he responds without hesitation. For now, however, he says there are still too many uncomfortable memories from the Bertie Ahern years, when Ireland operated a citizenship by investment program (of sorts). He does, however, lobby the Irish government from time to time, urging them to at least reform their Ireland Immigrant Investor Program and make it more attractive.