B2 Visa

Tom: The Roy system... System Duenas?

Roy: It's Spanish, it's Duenas. It's a Spanish name.

Tom: I was thinking of more specifically instead of going straight into the E2 route, looking into the B2.

Roy: Ok, that's what you referred to as my system. With the visa waiver you are allowed a limited number of entries per year and each entry up to 90 days.

Tom: That's what people typically to come on holiday with?

Roy: Yes, exactly.

The visa waiver is not intended to allow you to come over here for business purposes because there is a category of visa B2B1, that is intended for pleasure and business.

So when you come over here you can go to the pool and can talk to a business broker with the intention to start doing something for your future... a year down the road... two years down the road... 6 months down the road.

The B2 allows you multiple entries with each one of the entries up to 6 months. The cost, I think, is £92-97. It's only a matter of scheduling an appointment with a consulate.

Three weeks ago a couple went and the biggest queues were for the E2. There was nobody for the B2! They went in there, 20 minutes and out. They had their passports stamped three days later and they were about 2-3 hours North of London.

To get the B2, multiple entries, which will cost you under £100 will be the best investment you are going to make in this process.

You can come over here you can stay for up to 6 months and not have to worry about having to go back in 3 months. And you are not breaking the law because you came over here for business and pleasure; so you can take an extended vacation here while you are looking for a business or you can buy a business or you can set one up, nothing is going to impede you from doing any of those 3 things.

However, when you buy business you can stay here and apply for a change of status from B2 to E2.

It is going to be cheaper because you won't have to go back to the UK to apply for the E2 and then stay there for a few months and then come back and go back whenever they decide to give you the interview.

You are going to save thousands of pounds right then and there for two trips for the family because the whole family has to go out.

Once you are here, you can apply for a change of status. There are some immigration lawyers that specialize in change of status only. Don't hire a lawyer that is going to charge $60 per hour because you never know when he's going to stop counting the hours or is going to wake up. You want to hire an immigration lawyer that will tell you he is going to charge you $1000 to file the change of status for you (that is his fees plus the US government fees.) That could be $1000, $900, $1500 it depends on what you are applying for.

That's my best advice get a B2 visa.

You can stay over here for 6 months you are not technically breaking the law by coming over here to try to buy or set up the business. Under the visa waiver they can bounce you back if you have more than 2 entriesn in that particular year. If you do it back to back you stay 90 days you go out for a week, for a cruise to Cancun, then come back they give you another 90 days. Well the next time you're going to be up in the air, they can ban you from the country for a year, 6 months, 2 years, whatever the immigration officer decides.

Tom: And it doesn't look good on your record.

Roy: No. Not at all.

Tom: And so it doesn't help for your longer term progression to living over here.

Roy: Definitely not.

Then if they discover your intention is to live here, maybe you own a property here and that is a big, big, nasty mistake the British make.

They buy a property here, they put a down payment, they think the management company is going to lease it out away from them so they pay the mortgage with the rental and you are going to come over here but you already have a property here.

So for the immigration officer at the port of entry your intention may be to stay here. They may ask you do you own a property in Orlando and the you say 'Yes, I own a property here I am very proud.'

That's it you are dead in the water.

Tom: Explain that please. Explain why you are dead in the water.

Roy: You are dead in the water because that gives a foot in the door for the immigration officer to say you may change your intention because you already own a property here. You may intend to stay, not visit.

I'm not talking about a car, I'm talking about a house.

Tom: So it is down to the immigration officer to make his interpretation of your intention.

Roy: The immigration officer at the point of entry has the ultimate authority to kick you out of the country... ban you from coming back into the country... for a year or two or ten. He has that.

You may have a visa, but he has that.

Now when you're coming in with a tourist visa from another country, from the European community, you are going to coming in with a visa waiver. That automatically gives you 90 days in. They will be stamping you with the I94 to control your entrance and exit. He will ask you certain questions.

He runs your passport there, 'oh he came in 4 months ago and left two and a half months ago, two months later... Why are you coming back? Do you own a property here?'

'Yes we own a property and want to stay another 2-3 months.'

Your intention is no longer pleasure. Your intention requires a different visa, a resident visa, well go back to the UK and apply for a resident visa and wait another 2-3 years.

Boom, they stamp it on your passport.

That's it now, who's going to care for our property here? That's why I advise you to get a B2 visa because it allows multiple entries and then you can say we have a home here because we are trying to develop a business, perfectly legal. There's no excuse for any officer to say no, because your intention is not to live here. If your intention is to stay here then you have to apply for a different visa which is your green card.

The B2 allows you to come over here and stay for 6 months. You are tying to set up an internet business or you already have one and you want to manage it from here. It's hosted in the UK, Tazmania, wherever it is.

Technically, if you come with a visa waiver you may be in deep waters. Not the 1st time not the 2nd time but the 3rd time and then on. There have been many instances where British couples were bounced back, did they go back to the UK and say 'oh I was bounced back?' They were embarrassed and they just aren't going to tell many people about that.

So you don't know of those terrible and horrible experiences.

Once you have again, that's my best advice, get a B2 visa.

The B2, which technically allows you to do what you want to do which is to start looking for a business.

Tom: All parties need to apply?

Roy: Yes, everyone in the family gets it. The kids, the dog, the parrot!

Tom: So the husband and wife apply for it together?

Roy: Yes, and they have to bring all the passports for the family unit.

So they get it, now everybody can come over here. They cannot stay here and live here forever but at least 6 months. With that B2 visa you can get a drivers license but it is going to expire at the expiration date of that entry. Not the expiration of the visa, the visa can be for 10 years, 5 years but the I94 will be valid, admitted until October 15th or whenever is 6 months from entry. Then it is going to take 30 days for you to get the drivers license and when you get it in the mail, it expires at the end of your visit period (ie. October 15th.)

Now if you go out and you come back a week later you get another admission for another 6 months. You go to the driver's license office say I came back a week ago and have a new I94 and get it extended. You pay $15 and that's it.

That keeps you legal, perfectly legal.

Ultimately, if you want to get the green card you will have to prove you did everything perfectly legally, by the book from day one. Not that you just changed gears.

Tom: I think the reason people don't do things by the book is because they don't know the book!

Roy: Exactly!

Tom: And so they make mistakes and then find out and by then they've already made the mistake!!

Roy: Let me tell you who the two industries or individuals that are responsible for people not doing it by the book.

Initially, it's the lawyers.

The lawyers are not acting in the best interest of their clients in educating them. They are going to solve a problem right now for £2-3,000 and then come back to me because I didn't tell you that you will hit a brick wall 6 months down the road.

Then the business brokers.

Here's the business, I am a conduit of information between seller and buyer. I make 10%, 12%, 17% whatever I want to charge. And that's the end of it. You buy the business, you are a grown up guy, husband and wife you figure it out.

So the main responsibility is for the lawyers.

I have seen them intentionally requesting the E2 visa for 1 year, for 2 years because one year goes by really fast, especially the first year you are here in the US because the learning curve is so steep.

You have to find school for the kids... just an enormous amount of things. At the end of 2 years you are going to have to start all over again, right when you are getting a little bit of slack, a little bit of relief.

Then you will have to call your lawyer back in the UK to file for the renewal for the E2. So he made £6-7,000 two years ago, intentionally applied for your visa to be no more than 2 years instead of applying and explicitly saying in the cover letter 5 years.

5 years is good. Ok, pay him another £7,000 5 years down the road. He did a good job. But they don't do that.

Especially for the L1 and L2 visas from the UK, from Latin America. Lawyers file for 1 or 2 years at the most for the L1 and L2. To have to go through the whole process again is even worse for the renewal than the first time, that is for the L1 and L2 but for the E2 it is pretty much the same thing.

Now you have to put the personal, family side of the package. You only do the company side of the package for the application. Ok, by then once you have taken care of the family side of the application, you have to work on the company side. Make sure it meets all the requirements; you have all the financials and everything the due diligence and all that.

It is not required, a review by a CPA, unless the company is marginal.

It is not required, a legal opinion by a lawyer, so the British buyer can do the whole thing on his own.

But he has to be guided.

Guided by a knowledgeable, honest, straight business broker where the welfare of his buyers and sellers is over and above, first and foremost to the commission he is going to be making.

The problem is the real estate market and the business brokerage has been traditionally feast and famine, so you make $30-40,000 from a deal today and then 6-7 months you don't make any money. So most business brokers go for the commission first. But if you have enough deals you have a big cash reserve, which allows me personally to dedicate a lot of time to each one of my customers to get much more than they expect.

Because if they want to look for a good neighborhood, I'll drive them around town or tell them where to go, a different city, go spend a couple of days in one city, just don't go for the attractions parks.

Florida is a beautiful region.

You have springs, so many natural attractions. So many places you can live extremely well as a family. Wholesome.

You can get a property in the boonies out there in the woods and you are going to have fun because within 10 minutes you are going to be right inside a city.