How to check a residency consultant before you pay them

Residency and citizenship advice is a market where the client cannot easily judge the product before buying it, the amounts are large, and the regulation is thin. That combination attracts both serious firms and the other kind. These checks are not exhaustive, and they remove most of the risk.

1. Who is the legal entity

Ask for the registered name, jurisdiction and registration number of the company you would contract with — not the brand on the website. Then look it up in that country's register. A firm operating through an entity registered somewhere unexpected, or incorporated last year, is not automatically a problem; not being told is.

2. Are they licensed where a licence exists

Some programmes maintain official lists of authorised agents. Where such a list exists, membership is verifiable in a minute and non-membership is decisive. Where no licence exists for the specific programme, ask what regulated activity they do hold — a law firm licence, an immigration adviser registration — and check that.

3. How they answer the uncomfortable question

Ask what happens if the application is refused, and what happens if the programme changes while your file is pending. A serious adviser has a clear answer covering fees, timelines and the government portion that is never refundable. An adviser who tells you refusal does not happen has answered the question.

4. Whether they promise outcomes they do not control

Nobody controls a government decision. Guarantees of approval, guarantees of timing, and above all guarantees about future visa-free access are claims about things outside the adviser's power. Visa-free lists are decided by third countries and have been reduced before.

5. Where the money goes

Government fees and investment amounts should go to government or escrow accounts, not to the adviser's operating account. Ask for the payment structure in writing before signing, and be direct about which portion is theirs and which is passed through.

6. What they say about tax

A residency adviser who explains your tax position confidently, without knowing your country of origin and without recommending advice there, is outside their competence. The correct answer is that tax is a separate question requiring advice in both jurisdictions. Anyone who tells you a residence permit automatically ends your tax obligations at home is wrong, and the mistake is expensive.

The pattern behind all six

Every one of these checks is really the same question: does this person distinguish between what they control and what they do not? Advisers who make that distinction clearly are worth their fee. Advisers who blur it are selling certainty they cannot supply, and certainty is precisely the thing that is not available in this field.