Minton hosts a salon on property investment and migration to Australia

On 7 April 2018 Minton Law Firm successfully held a salon on property investment and migration to Australia at its Shanghai office. Officials of the Queensland government, Australian land and property developers, and partners of the Australian firm AMVS, with which Minton has long maintained a strategic partnership, attended as invited guests. Those present set out property investment and migration in Queensland from the standpoints of the state government, the developers and Australian migration lawyers.

At the meeting Angela, an official of Trade and Investment Queensland, spoke about the living environment, the main fields of Chinese investment in Australia and the investment advantages of Queensland, and the welfare entitlements of Queensland residents. She said that mining and energy, livestock, agriculture, and meat and dairy products in Queensland all offered good investment prospects, and that the major infrastructure, municipal and state government projects under construction locally were providing a better environment for investment in Australia.

After the Queensland government slightly relaxed its scrutiny of investor migration applications in 2017, applications from China for Australian permanent residence rose sharply, and the number of nomination places that the state's assessing officers submit to their superiors was more than 150 per cent higher than in the previous year; both the number of applications for permanent residence and the number of state nominations are now rising steadily.

One marked advantage of applying for an Australian permanent residence visa is that, once it is granted, the holder faces no additional restriction on property investment in Australia, just like a local resident. That distinguishes the holder from a person on a temporary Australian visa, who must obtain government approval before investing in Australian property, and such approval is in general hard to obtain.

Adam, executive director of the Australian land and property developer Gallery Group, and Bill, its sales director, presented to guests the group's investment business across land and property in every link of the chain, from the purchase and subdivision of land to the construction, redevelopment and letting of buildings. Because its core development area lies in Queensland, Gallery Group understands the local property investment and migration policy thoroughly and can plan more suitable land and property investment schemes for investors, for outbound investment from China, for permanent residence applications, and for investment abroad.

It can be seen that investment and migration in Queensland have much to recommend them. How, then, is an Australian permanent residence visa applied for, and migration achieved smoothly? Simon Mander, a partner of AMVS and a migration lawyer registered with the Australian government, then took every guest through direct and simple charts: the conditions an applicant must satisfy at each link of the chain, from applying for a permanent residence visa, the preparation needed before and after application and the timetable for each step, the investment made once the visa is granted, and the state government's review of visas already issued, through to the successful completion of migration. He also described the professional legal services that Minton and AMVS provide to applicants.

In discussion with the guests Simon clarified many questions that had long troubled applicants. Taking the various scenarios of visa application and property investment that guests put forward, he set out a range of professional views and suggestions. Drawing on fifteen years as a migration lawyer, Simon offered guests something more valuable still: professional thinking on the various key details of investment migration to Australia that they had not previously considered.

Building on a long and well-matched strategic partnership, Minton and AMVS divide the work between them and continue to provide more professional legal services, across a wider range, to applicants for Australian visas and to investors in Australia from China. Besides precise and up-to-date information, the two firms give applicants effective technical and resource support for the investment they make in Australia after obtaining permanent residence. Their long-standing good relations with the Queensland government and local developers help both firms to read investment migration policy more deeply, and to plan well for applicants the interplay between investing through property and applying for permanent residence, so meeting their needs as property investors and as migrants.