While Guernsey’s safe environment is said to be the primary driving force behind relocation queries, experts said the financial benefits of living in Guernsey – which had been amplified in light of the Labour government’s abolition of favourable treatment for non-domiciled residents earlier this year – was a significant factor.
Jo Stoddart, director of Locate Guernsey, said she was receiving as many as 10 emails a day during June and July from people enquiring about moving.
While more recently enquiries had decreased to about a dozen emails a week, she said the agency had ‘definitely’ seen a general rise in recent months.
‘I have multiple meetings, over the phone or in person, pretty much every day.
‘There’s a lot of interest, a lot of people looking to come, it’s very good at the moment.’
Local mortgage brokers and tax advisory firms are also being pursued for advice.
Pierre Blampied, managing director of mortgage broker SPF, said the island’s lack of available housing, particularly on the open market, was proving to be an issue due to the sheer volume of relocation enquiries being received.
‘We’ve not got enough housing, not enough open market stock, and we get all these enquiries, but have nowhere for a lot of these individuals to live,’ he said.
Mr Blampied said the island needed to ensure it remained competitive against other jurisdictions in order to attract ultra high-net-worth individuals.
He added he was ‘definitely expecting’ more enquiries to come in as the UK’s Autumn Budget moved closer, with tax increases mooted.
A report in the Financial Times this week said 3,790 company directors had left the UK between last October’s Budget and last month, compared with 2,712 in the same period a year earlier.
Julian Turian, executive director of tax advisory firm LTS Tax, said ever since the changes to non-domiciled residents had been announced, his company had received an ‘awful lot’ of inquiries from UK-based individuals.
While their enquiries tended not to be fiscally-driven in the first instance, with Guernsey’s quality of life usually the subject of their initial query, the fiscal benefits of relocation soon became apparent.
‘I’d say a third of calls we get are done on a whim, the remaining two-thirds are genuine enquiries, and of those two-thirds I’d say between 60% and 70% go from enquiring to actively looking to move,’ Mr Turian said.
He was keen to emphasise that wealthy individuals looking to move to the island was a ‘really positive thing’ for Guernsey.
‘These individuals do great for the community, they bring in a lot of revenue, contributing to our economy, and we mustn’t lose sight of that.’
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