How to choose a Malta Citizenship Agent
Tips on choosing from the long list of Malta Citizenship Agents. Malta citizenship applications are complex and unique trusted Citizenship specialising in MIIP are critical. We obtained feedback from foreign advisors about their experience working with firms in Malta. We also crosschecked with Malta Citizenship Agents who were willing to speak to us. This is what we found...
Choosing the right Malta Citizenship Agent
The spectrum of over a hundred Malta citizenship agents offering assistance with citizenship applications ranges from the larger law and accounting firms of the island, to sole practitioners.
Law firms have tended to neglect immigration over the years, preferring to focus on Malta's corporate and financial services offerings. This cannot be said of Chetcuti Cauchi Advocates, the Valletta-based legal and tax firm holding the records of the first agent (IIP 001) to be licensed to file the first applications under Malta's first pathway to citizenship, the first approvals and tops the Malta citizenship agents list for media attention received due to authoritative research on Maltese Citizenship: the CIP Index, the CIP Due Diligence Index, the Dual Citizenship Report and specialised Malta Citizenship videos. The firm's Immigration and Global Mobility law practice is led by 4 of the firm's eight partners, private client veteran lawyer Dr Jean-Philippe Chetcuti and fellow senior partner Dr Priscilla Mifsud Parker, and Dr Antoine Saliba-Haig and Marina Magri. Despite not being the largest firm by size, the firm has received prestigious international legal awards and rankings in independent peer reviews for its work shaping the HNW citizenship space in Malta.
Advantages of working with a law firm:
- legally-backed discretion: the significant disclosures required by Maltese Citizenship applicants are covered by legal privileges applicable to client-lawyer disclosures. This comfort results in fuller disclosure and higher chances of success within a secure environment.
- law-first multidisciplinary approach: citizenship applications are a legal process and it pays to work with a specialist citizenship law firm with in-house legal and tax expertise and international experience and connectivity.
Consulting companies staffed by non-lawyers comprise the vast majority of agents and tend to deprioritise or outsource the legal and tax components of citizenship applications. They tend to have several sales offices in key markets and command an impressive market presence whilst having a small and junior local presence, often outside the island's capital city.
Accounting firms range from large accounting firms to sole practitioners. A representative of a major accounting firm, who preferred to remain unnamed, told us that many accounting firms have joined the Maltese citizenship bandwagon without a real commitment to this mainly personal client offering, given their focus on corporate clients, where they make the largest chunk of their annual revenue from audit and advisory fees.
Sole practitioners have tended to appear and disappear from the professional marketplace, often due to lack of traction, inactivity and lack of access of the width of legal, financial, philanthropic, technical and business expertise required by citizenship by merit applications. We spoke to senior citizenship lawyer Dr Priscilla Mifsud Parker, an experienced player in this market and respected for her role as STEP Chair for several years, who explains that clients appreciate the personal and boutique attention they get from her as a personal citizenship agent, but they also benefit from full tax and legal advice offered by her law firm Chetcuti Cauchi on investments and businesses they set up during or after their citizenship process. The IIP Marketing Concessionaire's functions are described in a separate article.
Track Records of Malta Citizenship Agents
There is no official statistic of the success rates of Malta Citizenship Agents. A Maltese Citizenship Regulator Report indicates that rejection rates of agents can be as high as a tragic 87%, indicating the levels of inexperience of some less specialised agents. The only stated firm in the report on account of the volumes processed, Chetcuti Cauchi, had a rejection rate at 10%. In response to our requests for comment, Dr JP Chetcuti, the lead citizenship lawyer at the firm, explained that the firm conducts extensive due diligence before on-boarding the client and does not take on applicants who, in the lawyer's experience, do not stand a reasonable chance of success. "Rejections are mostly of applicants who have hidden from us material facts like serious health conditions, significant assets, or other adverse matters depriving us of the ability to properly represent the applicant."
Fees for Malta Citizenship Agents
Not that fees should be an issue for someone paying a million plus Euros for a citizenship. Our research has shown that fees range from as low as €60K to as high as €170,000, not counting inexperienced newcomers on the scene that may be zealous for first clients and may charge even lower. Fees may vary according to complexity, the range of services offered, expertise and track record. For something as consequential as this, fee savings may turn out very costly in the event of rejection due to inexperienced handling.
Citizenship agents on the lower fee side tend to be single service immigration consultancies that offer strictly a citizenship application. All other services would be separate service fees added on as the application progresses.
Higher fees often represent a firm ticking all important factors: a high track record, a specialised immigration law approach within a full-service law firm environment. A citizenship application is known to require the submission of a lot of legal, financial and corporate documentation. Therefore a firm that practices in corporate and trust structures and international taxation is often better positioned to fully understand, guide and represent an applicant. Such firms typically offer an all-in immigration process, as well as pre-immigration tax advice, legal advice on the required purchase/ rental of property, property viewings and buying advice and multi-lingual support.
Choosing the wrong Malta Citizenship Agents
Generally, you get what you pay for. The gap between the lowest and the highest fee rates is wide. However so is the service offering and the level of experience of Malta citizenship agents. The consequence of a bad choice may be the rejection of an application, meaning you end up worse of than when you started. Rejected applicants are nowadays not allowed to apply in other European countries so that would be a big red dot on your immigration history. So get the right advice.