Bermuda is hotting up the competition among small island states by finally offering permanent residence to expats.
The Bermuda government is amending visa laws over the next few weeks to open the doors to welcome expats to move to the Caribbean sunshine island popular with the British and North Americans.
At this time, Bermuda is one of few places that has no process to give expats residency status unless they marry an island resident.
Home Affairs Minister Martin Fahy explained the government was bringing Bermuda in line with many other small island states with the new law.
Belonger status
He gave several other islands that give expats ‘belonger’ status after moving in for a time as examples – including the Falklands, where the status is conferred after seven years and the British Virgin Islands, where an expat has to live for 21 years to gain the status.
The Bermuda proposals will call for a 15 year qualifying residence period for belonger status.
Expats will have to have at least two years’ unbroken residence when they make their application and to be someone of good conduct and character during their residency.
The new rules will also allow anyone who arrived on the island before their 16th birthday will be eligible for permanent residence when they reach 18 years old if they can show 10 years of residency.
Trickster pays £500,000 for scamming expats
Trickster Radovan Laski cheated almost 100 expats out of £390,000 by claiming his company Clinica Internationale Pty Ltd, of Melbourne, Australia, could help them gain residency visas with a fake immigration training program.
The Australia Competition and Consumer Commission is fining Laski more than £500,000 for the scam.
The company offered expats training that would lead to a job and Laski told his victims that he would help them apply for a visa.
In reality, only 10 people were offered jobs at an abattoir and none qualified for a residence visa.
When the expats tried to gain a refund on the fees they had paid, Laski refused or even started legal counterclaims against them.
A federal judge ordered the contracts made by the company void and Laski to refund fees to his victims as well as financial penalties on him and his company.
