Property Companies

A very popular practice is that a real property item is purchased by an offshore company which is registered as the proprietor in the Land Registry, and if the proprietor of this company (i.e. the beneficiary owner of the real property in question) wants to sell the real property, it is sufficient to sell the shares of his or her offshore company and thus avoid the real property transfer tax. (the proprietor - the offshore company is the same).

The above-mentioned structure is only possible in those jurisdictions where it is possible that a foreign entity owns the real property in question. In the jurisdictions where this is not possible, the real property can be owned in such a way that it is purchased by a company there which is owned by a foreign offshore company.

This way it is possible to achieve:
- Asset protection (you are nowhere listed as proprietor)
- Avoidance of inheritance tax (after the death of the proprietor the bearer of the shares becomes a new proprietor), real property transfer tax, etc. (the proprietor is the person who owns assets of the offshore company)
- Protection from forced inheritance or from heirs at law.

In certain circumstances there are significant tax advantages in having properties held by appropriate domestic and/or Netherlands Antilles mechanisms (often by using double taxation treaties).

Further, by using appropriate tax treaties it may also be possible to arrange "back-to-back" loans to virtually eliminate domestic tax liability on rental payments.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us by phone (+5999 461 1401) or via this form:

You can also visit the Trustmoore homepage for more information about us.