The Indian market is flooded with agencies selling overseas residency and second citizenship services. With investments in crores and your future at stake, what should you look for in a trustworthy firm to truly safeguard your interests?

Here are five key check points.

EXPERIENCE MATTERS

Less experience RCBI (Residency and Citizenship by Investment) service providers often appear much more affordable than experienced ones. Buy going with a less knowledgeable firm may be putting your application at risk, or extending the time and cost to get your approval. This can be particularly true for those coming from the Indian subcontinent. To ensure you have the right advisor, ask them 3 key questions. First, how many years of experience do they have specifically in providing RCBI services. Next, what is their success rate? They should be able to be quite specific with a percentage or similar. Then thirdly, are their agents legally authorized to promote the particular investment immigration program or programs in which you are most interested?

WORK WITH A MULTINATIONAL

You must do your own due diligence. Check their website and look at where they have offices. A firm with offices in both India, as your existing country of origin, as well as in your possible destination countries, is the goal. In fact, a firm with a global list of full service offices, not just partners or representative offices, is best placed to give you truly unbiased advice.

Such a presence also says a great deal about the strength and credibility of the firm. Plus, it gives them the ability to more deeply understand the potential difficulties in different countries and take a more localized approach to resolving them for you.

DO THEY HAVE A RANGE OF RCBI PROGRAMS?

Often firms specialize in only a couple of program types. They push those to applicants and investors, in the firm’s interests, not their clients’. Again, this can be particularly true for South Asians.

By contrast, the better investment migration practices offer a range of programs to better meet your aspirations.

As a consequence, they are much better positioned to listen and understand what you are seeking and then be able to give proper advice to meet your objectives, even tailoring initiatives for your requirements. The difference in outcome can be life changing!

USE AN INVESTMENT MIGRATION LAW FIRM

In some countries, aspects of immigration assistance are restricted to lawyers – not consultants and not agents. Make sure that the person you are talking with is both competent to advise you and can officially represent you for the program you are considering.

Reputable law firms are typically happy to disclose their level of expertise in different areas and the scope of the work they normally perform, whereas for agents or other consultants, you may have to insist on seeing their agreements in advance (often with a very long list of ‘exclusions’).

DON’T HESITATE TO ASK FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT FOR INDIANS

You can and should request a face-to-face consultation or, if the firm is not present in your city, then a virtual meeting.

This will put you in a better position to assess the agent’s competence to advise you and your family and to make suggestions you may not have considered.

Further, you should definitely ask for a detailed proposal. Credible firms will not hesitate to provide you with such a proposal, in writing, with in-depth details of the program, along with investment criteria, and with government fees and professional fees clearly listed (so you avoid hidden costs and nasty surprises).

For additional advice or for more information about Harvey Law Group’s residency and citizenship-by-investment investment immigration services, please visit www.harveylawcorporation.com/.

If you would like to request a consultation with the HLG Mumbai office, email us at: [email protected]