Who you will be working with
Remy Hart is a Partner at Holborn Assets and Head of Wealth Management for its Spanish and Portuguese offices. He has spent his entire career as an expat advising other expats, and still works directly with clients whose lives and finances span several countries at once.
I have spent my career as an expat, advising expats. There is a real difference between understanding cross border finances in theory and having lived it yourself. I bring both.
That perspective matters here more than in almost any other kind of advice. A second passport touches travel, family, business, banking, estate planning and tax all at once, and the interactions between them are where people get caught out. Remy is there to see the whole board, not just the programme brochure.
Why work through an adviser at all
You can find programme details online in an afternoon. What you cannot easily find is an honest read on which route fits your situation, what the true all in cost is once fees and due diligence are included, and where the traps are for someone with your nationality.
The application itself also rewards experience. Due diligence checks, source of funds documentation and government processes are unforgiving of small mistakes, and errors are slow and expensive to unwind. Working with a specialist is how you avoid learning that the hard way.
If you are a US citizen, read this first
The United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income no matter where they live or what other passports they hold. A second citizenship, on its own, does not reduce your US tax bill, and it does not remove your US filing, FATCA or FBAR obligations. The genuine benefits for Americans are mobility, family security and optionality, not tax escape. Anyone telling you otherwise is overselling. This is exactly why the first conversation matters, and why you should also take independent US tax advice.
The honest version of the pitch
A second passport is one of the few things you buy once and hold for life, that also passes to your children. For the right person it is a genuine form of security and freedom. For the wrong person, or the wrong programme, it is an expensive document that does not do what they hoped. The only way to know which you are is a straight conversation, which is all the first call is.