Moving to Portugal and navigating luxury property

Despite his success in Canada, Georges needed more familiarity or connections in the Portuguese property market. They wanted to ensure that he had optimised his assets in Canada and aligned those with what he wanted to achieve in Portugal.

Georges' family also needed to address various logistical issues, such as finding suitable schools, securing healthcare insurance, minimising any exit taxes from Canada, and structuring his assets and income to optimise his worldwide portfolio and take advantage of the double taxation agreements between Portugal and his home country.

Georges' eldest son's promising career in STEM research added another layer of complexity, as they wanted to ensure he could meet the right people. Balancing these family needs alongside his plans to invest in a real estate portfolio in Portugal underscored the multifaceted challenges Georges faced during his move.

Portugal Pathways brought together a coordinated team of cross-border tax specialists and wealth advisers to address Georges' Canadian exit position before any decisions were made, ensuring his assets were restructured in a way that minimised exit tax exposure while aligning his worldwide portfolio with the reliefs available under the Portugal-Canada double taxation agreement.

Rather than treating this as a one-off tax exercise, the team looked at Georges' full financial picture, including his planned real estate investments, so that his Canadian holdings and his new Portuguese interests worked together as one coherent strategy rather than two separate concerns.