Offshore company with a trust

[Shlomo]

Hi,

I was reading some articles about how combining an offshore company such as an IBC with an offshore trust could be very beneficial for some purposes. It does seem to be a rather expensive arrangement however, and I am wondering if someone has any advice on how to minimize costs? And for such an arrangement, I guess it would be best to look for a very serious company providing such services (not the cheapest ones)?

 

[Internationaloff]

Hi,

I was reading some articles about how combining an offshore company such as an IBC with an offshore trust could be very beneficial for some purposes. It does seem to be a rather expensive arrangement however, and I am wondering if someone has any advice on how to minimize costs? And for such an arrangement, I guess it would be best to look for a very serious company providing such services (not the cheapest ones)?

Hello.
"for some purposes" is too general. Could you be more specific?

 

[James Turner]

Yes the suitability and the way any structure is created will depend upon your circumstances and what you want to achieve and should be discussed at length with a provider who has experience.

 

[Shlomo]

From what I read, having a trust provides like a second layer of protection, but it also has some other purposes like asset protection in case of divorces, succession planning, and so on. So that is to say: many of the advantages of having an offshore company with a second layer of protection (financial privacy).

I am interested in three things:

1. Financial privacy (from governments)
2. Asset protection (divorce and governments)
3. Holding assets (real estate and companies)

The trust would control the IBC that owns a company in Europe and/or real estate. Good solution? Unnecessary? Too expensive for the purposes?

 

[James Turner]

You are correct that a Trust provides an additional layer of privacy and is often used for asset protection and to create complexity and increase confidentiality. It would certainly be possible to create a structure that owns a European Company and real estate. Only you can tell whether it is too expensive or not, but certainly it is a common structure for those purposes referred to.

 

[Shlomo]

Okay, thank you very much for the information! I am wondering though, does it matter from a practical perspective if the trust, IBC and bank account are located in the same jurisdiction?

 

[KJK]

From what I read, having a trust provides like a second layer of protection, but it also has some other purposes like asset protection in case of divorces, succession planning, and so on. So that is to say: many of the advantages of having an offshore company with a second layer of protection (financial privacy).

I am interested in three things:

1. Financial privacy (from governments)
2. Asset protection (divorce and governments)
3. Holding assets (real estate and companies)

The trust would control the IBC that owns a company in Europe and/or real estate. Good solution? Unnecessary? Too expensive for the purposes?

Yes this is a "usual" setup that some people use. You form a company that will not do anything at all, it will just hold real estate. You can then live in the real estate, with owner hidden from the state / your former wife / annoying neighbour / whatever. When you check real estate in some crazy expensive places like neighbourhoods in London, you'll find out that a lot of the houses there are owned in this way by a trust while the real owner is some Russian guy laundering money.

It can also help when selling the property or transfering to someone else - you can transfer the ownership of the company instead of ownership of the real estate.

Also it's important to research whether a foreign company can own assets (such as real estate) in the country you're interested in. If not, you need to add an extra step there, local company, owned by foreign company, belonging to the trust.

 

[negon]

You need to look at your budget and then on your requirements what is suggested here is very very costly!

 

[Shlomo]

You need to look at your budget and then on your requirements what is suggested here is very very costly!

But I was looking at Offshorecorpgroup, and they offer a Seychelles Trust package, which is not cheap by definitely not very, very costly. Am I missing something here? Additional costs? Of course in addition to the trust it would be necessary to form av offshore corp, but even so the cost would be 4,745 euro for a Seychelles Trust and a Seychelles company, in addition to an annual fee of 2,445 euro. That comes down to 203 euro/monthly.

 

[Spinat]

would be necessary to form av offshore corp, but even so the cost would be 4,745 euro for a Seychelles Trust and a Seychelles company, in addition to an annual fee of 2,445 euro. That comes down to 203 euro/monthly.

it's cheap compared to what you usually pay for a trustee that managed your business and banking business!

 

[JohnLocke]

Hi,

I was reading some articles about how combining an offshore company such as an IBC with an offshore trust could be very beneficial for some purposes. It does seem to be a rather expensive arrangement however, and I am wondering if someone has any advice on how to minimize costs? And for such an arrangement, I guess it would be best to look for a very serious company providing such services (not the cheapest ones)?

don't go too cheap. It often means that you pay for something that won't work. Maybe you don't pay that much and think you bought the same service but at the end of the day it is different.!

 

[KJK]

But I was looking at Offshorecorpgroup, and they offer a Seychelles Trust package, which is not cheap by definitely not very, very costly. Am I missing something here? Additional costs? Of course in addition to the trust it would be necessary to form av offshore corp, but even so the cost would be 4,745 euro for a Seychelles Trust and a Seychelles company, in addition to an annual fee of 2,445 euro. That comes down to 203 euro/monthly.

This is likely one of the cheapest setups / countries you'll be able to get. If you wanted to create a similar trust in a more reputable country but in Europe and still with privacy, you would pay much more than that.

I have no experience with this but also it's worth researching the laws of the trust's location - not because of privacy but because of what is actually allowed for the trust to do. You may find out later that you have a trust but you cannot do anything useful with it (legally) in some countries.

 

[Suzy Emerald]

Does anyone have experience with trusts in Belize? I read that BZ trusts are very flexible and an advantage of local laws is that yourr assets are immediately protected so no 'vesting' period. Can a BZ trust own real estate in the EU?

 

[JohnLocke]

Seychelles or Belize Truts both works just fine and both are flexible depending on which agent you are using for the setup. Usually it's not a big deal since you get charged by the number of requests you make and how complicated each contract / agreement is.