by FSBO 
Are you planning to sell property in Barbados fast? Then you would certainly want to know about the impact of the release of 13.4 million files, called as the Paradise Papers on the luxury property market in Barbados.
Barbados is one of the red hot overseas property destinations, which is favoured by the rich and the famous of the world – film stars, bankers, hedge fund managers, professional athletes, fashion designers, rock stars and more. Barbados is an eastern Caribbean island and an independent British Commonwealth nation. Bridgetown, the capital, is a cruise-ship port with colonial buildings and Nidhe Israel, a synagogue founded in 1654. Around the island are beaches, botanical gardens, the Harrison’s Cave formation, and 17th-century plantation houses like St. Nicholas Abbey.
The Paradise Papers exposes the fact that some of the richest people in the world have been stashing their wealth in overseas tax havens in order to purchase overseas properties, in luxurious destinations such as Barbados. In Barbados, an average luxury property costs $2 million, so you can well imagine that those who invest here are among the richest people in the world.
The papers were acquired after a hack by cyber thieves on Appleby, a famous global law firm. This law firm helps wealthy international clients invest their massive savings in overseas tax havens. This law firm has offices in Bermuda, Isle of Man and many other tax havens and caters to the “super rich” of the world and major global companies.
What the leak has done has made people more anxious about investing in overseas properties, especially in destinations such as Barbados. There is no telling if and when your information could be hacked and put out to the media. That’s why it is so important for those involved in the overseas property market to secure their systems and put the highest level of security protocols in place.
So far, many major celebrities have been caught in the Panama Papers scandal, the likes of Lord Ashcroft, and even the Queen. The Queen has been mentioned as wanting to invest her enormous assets overseas in order to escape the high taxes back home in the UK. There is a major Russian billionaire, who holds a large share in Facebook and Twitter, whose name has come up.
This has certainly been embarrassing for everyone concerned. The fact is there are 13.4 million files released on the internet, most of them are yet to be read by anyone. So, more names could come up in the future.
Indeed, this has already been a big issue in many countries. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn, the UK opposition leader, blamed the “super-rich elite which holds the taxation system and the rest of us in contempt”.
However the legal implications are not too serious. As Martin Sullivan, chief economist for Tax Analysts explains: “There is nothing illegal about having a bank account in Bermuda. It’s only a problem if you don’t disclose it on your tax return.”
For those who want to buy property in Barbados online, this should be nothing more than a temporary blip. Barbados has been doing very well recently; the island nation has completely recovered from the shock of the 2008-2009 economic crisis. It is now the best place to buy property in the Caribbean.
