Published on 11/23/2015
Hello, I’m Vaughan de Kirby. As you know, in our brief videos we try to discuss matters that come up in our practice. And this is a good example. How do the laws in my country, which is different than in the United States, impact my EB-5 application?
Too often attorneys and clients just assume that the law in their home country and the law in the United States are going to be the same. Yes, in the United States, we do share the common law of the UK, but other than that, our law is very unique, as is the law of most home countries.
A good example of this are the business entities that might be recognized in your home country, the ownership of property may be memorialized in a different way than it is in the United States, and even the security interest that someone may have in a particular piece of property may also be different than what we experience in the United States.
The reason this is important is because a key part of your application is going to be source of funds. And the differences in the law of your home country and the United States can impact the source of funds, the evidence you’re going to be able to provide.
Now I’m happy to say that our firm, we have the Director of EB-5 Department, who is a California State Bar registered foreign legal consultant. This means that this member of our team can give a legal opinion of the home country for our clients. This is a very important thing that we found to be important to our clients.
Now if you’re working with another attorney, and that attorney has said that the law in your home country doesn’t match the United States, and doesn’t know how to handle this, you can recommend your attorney, if they don’t have someone like we do on staff, they can go to the state bar in the particular state. In California, you can go to the state bar and you can look and see who is actually registered as a foreign legal consultant. You can then find that legal consultant, or your attorney can, and they can get a legal opinion and they can use that in your application. This is a key to getting your application approved.
I hope this information is helpful. Let your attorney know that the state bar in your state may in fact have these legal consultants registered with them, people that you can consult. Thank you!
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or call 415-221-2345.
