Quote:
Originally Posted by paule
Dear Mr. Yehia,
Thank you very much for your presence on the forum and detailed responses - in ever-changing legal area, these are invaluable to raise confidence level of potential buyers and investors.
Following the matters or Residence Visa and recording ownership rights, may ask the following questions:
1. Above in this thread there was outlined procedure "get Residence Visa to give Power of Attorney to selected solicitor", quoting that a contract and passport are the only required prerequisites for this. May I ask if these are conditions for EU/UK citizens? What about people from the rest of world?
2. Somewhere on the net, I read that to get Residence Visa, value of purchased estate must be above 50000USD. Does this (still) hold true? And, if this is true, I would assume that this applies only for the property officially registered in land/estate registry.
3. Is it possible to have ownership on one apartment for several people? For example, we want to to buy an apartment with my brother, and also include our spouses (the ultimate aim being able to get Residence Visa for all of us, though just having our names attached to property is not less important). Is it possible? For both land registry vs notary (aka "Signature validity" case) methods?
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Dear Sir,
Thanks a lot for the nice words. Please read the answers below.
Q: 1. Above in this thread there was outlined procedure "get Residence Visa to give Power of Attorney to selected solicitor", quoting that a contract and passport are the only required prerequisites for this. May I ask if these are conditions for EU/UK citizens? What about people from the rest of world?
A: Same rules apply to every nationality. Being a 'foreigner' in laws does not distinguish between a certain nationality and another inrights and obligations, so it remains the same. However, and practically talking, procedures to obtain residency visa vary from a nationality to another. For U.K citizens for instance obtaining residency visa is way easier than for citizens from Russia and Ukraine, but eventually all nationalities have the same rights regardless of procedures. I personally would prefer that same procedures would be applied on every one as well.
Q: 2. Somewhere on the net, I read that to get Residence Visa, value of purchased estate must be above 50000USD. Does this (still) hold true? And, if this is true, I would assume that this applies only for the property officially registered in land/estate registry.
A: Regardles of what you read, which I "REALLY" have no idea at all where did they get this information from, but all what you need to do to obtain a 1 year residency visa is to go to the visa department, say that you want a 1 year residency visa, fill the application, pay the fees "around GBP 16", wait for 20 - 30 minutes, take the visa, and say bye to the gentleman there. Property value - or lack of property existence to begin with - has nothing to do with this. Please note that in case you have chosen to issue the power of attorney to your solicitor from the U.K "yes it can be easily done" then you wouldn't need the residency visa at all. In fact you -practically talking- can invest in Egypt and make profits without visiting it at all!
Q: 3. Is it possible to have ownership on one apartment for several people? For example, we want to to buy an apartment with my brother, and also include our spouses (the ultimate aim being able to get Residence Visa for all of us, though just having our names attached to property is not less important). Is it possible? For both land registry vs notary (aka "Signature validity" case) methods?
A: Yes sir it is possible and people do it all the time. It s actually the most common case, as in practice it is rare to find a sole purchser, but it is usually a couple. The purchaser "Second Party in sale / usufruct contract" can be more than an individual. Please note that if only one individual of the Second Party is adequate to issue the PoA to the solicitor, and subsequently a single 1 year residency visa for one member of the 'Purchaser' group is required, unless the other 'Purchaser' individuals need the residency visa for other purposes of course, but over this incident a single residency visa / PoA are adequate and valid.
I hope the foregoing answers were useful, but if you still have more questions please do not hesitate to enquire further.
All the best,
Zeiad Yehia
Solicitor