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Hi,
I'm so glad this forum exists and seems to be active. I've had a lot of misinformation and raised/dashed hopes from places that look a lot less established and professional.
Our situation is this. We are a professional couple in our mid-thirties and we would, in an ideal world, like to retire permanently to Arizona as soon as possible. We have some money (around £350k) to fund a move and we have assets (businesses and companies) with equity of around £300k which will produce an ongoing passive income of around £3000 per month. We are in no desperate rush but it would appear that there is no visa that fits our retirement plan.
We would be willing to work if that assisted in our dream to come Stateside. I'm an HR Director and my girlfriend is a Secondary Biology and Chemistry teacher (both degree qualified with 11 years experience) but would prefer not to. Getting a job in the area we want (around Phoenix) is tricky enough whilst we're in Scotland and getting a job with an American Company in the UK who could and would move us to a specific part of the US in time seems like a million to one shot.
Owing to the level of difficulty getting anything like permanent residence, we're pretty resigned to a middle ground whereby we buy a property in Arizona and then look to spend 6 months (March to October) in the US and six months back home in Scotland (our understanding being that the general rule of thumb existing that you should spend as much time out of the country as in on a tourist visa). At some point, we would perhaps like to do the extended tourist visa of one year to do a bit more exploring (possibly before we buy a house). Is the expectation then that we would be expected to spend the following twelve months outside the U.S.? We have heard stories that the six month visa, after a few years, can be extended to 9 months but that's not something I have seen anywhere else so we may have been led down the garden path on that one.
I'm more than happy to look at businesses (either starting or funding) in America but the investment visa seems to want a minimum of $1m which we don't have anything close to - the notion being that the money we do have would almost all go on a property and moving expenses,
As it stands, we've visited America in 10 of the last 12 years and, since their introduction, used the ESTA visa waiver without incident. I imagine it has been pretty comprehensively covered off but I'll ask anyway - with the 2-year visa waiver programme, is it possible to effectively hop in and out of America as you pleased that period as long as none of the stays in the US are more than 90 days? It seems an obvious workaround but I imagine owning a property and taking a quarterly jaunt to Mexico for a couple of days isn't at all on!?
We are, perhaps stupidly, already looking at properties and falling further in love with the idea but we're at a very early stage. Our desired timescale is somewhere in the next 3-5 years.
Any help, advice, guidance or signposting massively appreciated.
Cheers,
Billy
I'm so glad this forum exists and seems to be active. I've had a lot of misinformation and raised/dashed hopes from places that look a lot less established and professional.
Our situation is this. We are a professional couple in our mid-thirties and we would, in an ideal world, like to retire permanently to Arizona as soon as possible. We have some money (around £350k) to fund a move and we have assets (businesses and companies) with equity of around £300k which will produce an ongoing passive income of around £3000 per month. We are in no desperate rush but it would appear that there is no visa that fits our retirement plan.
We would be willing to work if that assisted in our dream to come Stateside. I'm an HR Director and my girlfriend is a Secondary Biology and Chemistry teacher (both degree qualified with 11 years experience) but would prefer not to. Getting a job in the area we want (around Phoenix) is tricky enough whilst we're in Scotland and getting a job with an American Company in the UK who could and would move us to a specific part of the US in time seems like a million to one shot.
Owing to the level of difficulty getting anything like permanent residence, we're pretty resigned to a middle ground whereby we buy a property in Arizona and then look to spend 6 months (March to October) in the US and six months back home in Scotland (our understanding being that the general rule of thumb existing that you should spend as much time out of the country as in on a tourist visa). At some point, we would perhaps like to do the extended tourist visa of one year to do a bit more exploring (possibly before we buy a house). Is the expectation then that we would be expected to spend the following twelve months outside the U.S.? We have heard stories that the six month visa, after a few years, can be extended to 9 months but that's not something I have seen anywhere else so we may have been led down the garden path on that one.
I'm more than happy to look at businesses (either starting or funding) in America but the investment visa seems to want a minimum of $1m which we don't have anything close to - the notion being that the money we do have would almost all go on a property and moving expenses,
As it stands, we've visited America in 10 of the last 12 years and, since their introduction, used the ESTA visa waiver without incident. I imagine it has been pretty comprehensively covered off but I'll ask anyway - with the 2-year visa waiver programme, is it possible to effectively hop in and out of America as you pleased that period as long as none of the stays in the US are more than 90 days? It seems an obvious workaround but I imagine owning a property and taking a quarterly jaunt to Mexico for a couple of days isn't at all on!?
We are, perhaps stupidly, already looking at properties and falling further in love with the idea but we're at a very early stage. Our desired timescale is somewhere in the next 3-5 years.
Any help, advice, guidance or signposting massively appreciated.
Cheers,
Billy
