The purchase is the straightforward part. What sits around it is where British buyers are most often underserved.
This page describes what changes for a UK resident and where the real questions sit. Your own position needs UK and US advisers, and we make those introductions. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
There is no restriction on a foreign national owning residential property in the United States. No visa, no residency and no citizenship is required to buy, to own or to sell. Ownership and immigration are separate systems and buying property grants no right to live in the country.
The mechanics are familiar enough. What differs for a British buyer is everything around the purchase: how the asset is held, how it is taxed in two systems at once, how it is financed, and how the money crosses.
The single most consequential item is one that almost never comes up in a sales gallery, and it is not income tax. It is what happens to US situs assets on death.
United States real property is a US situs asset. That means it can fall within the US estate tax net on the death of a non-resident owner, and the exemption available to a non-resident alien is dramatically lower than the one available to a US person. Owning directly, in a personal name, exposes the asset to that regime.
The United Kingdom is in the better half of this question, because the US and the UK have an estate tax treaty. That treaty affects how the exposure works and how relief is applied, and it puts a British buyer in a materially different position from, for example, a Spanish or Monegasque one, where no such treaty exists.
None of that means the exposure disappears, and none of it is a substitute for advice. It means the question is answerable and the structures available to answer it are well trodden. It also means the question should be settled before you sign, not after you close. Restructuring an asset already held is harder, slower and more expensive than holding it correctly from the start.
We do not advise on this and we will not. We introduce you to US and UK counsel who handle it together, because a structure that works in one system and fails in the other is worse than no structure at all.
Florida imposes no state income tax. Federal tax applies regardless, and a British owner letting a Miami residence has US federal reporting and filing obligations on that income. Those two facts are frequently blurred in marketing material and they should not be.
The UK taxes its residents on worldwide income and gains, so the same rental income and any eventual gain also sit within the UK system. The double taxation agreement between the two countries governs how relief is applied, and applying it correctly is an adviser’s job in both jurisdictions.
On disposal there is a further mechanism to know about. The United States operates a withholding regime on the sale of US real property by a foreign person, commonly referred to by the acronym FIRPTA. Tax is withheld at closing and reconciled afterwards. The rate and the exceptions are statutory, they have changed, and they carry conditions, so we do not publish a figure. What matters at the planning stage is simply that the mechanism exists and affects the cash you receive on completion.
Foreign national mortgage programmes exist in Florida and British buyers use them regularly. Lending is generally through portfolio lenders rather than the conventional US mortgage market, US credit history is not usually required, and the deposit expected is materially larger than a domestic buyer would be asked for.
Terms move with the rate environment and vary considerably by lender and by borrower, so we do not publish loan to value or rate figures. A broker who quotes you either without knowing your circumstances is guessing.
For preconstruction there is a sequencing point that catches people. Deposits are paid over the construction period, usually in instalments, and financing is arranged at closing rather than at contract. Most preconstruction agreements contain no financing contingency, which means the deposit commitment is made before any mortgage is in place. Establish how you will fund completion before you commit deposits, not during.
A dollar priced asset bought with sterling introduces a currency position whether you intend one or not. Over a preconstruction period of two or three years with staged deposits, the rate at each instalment differs, and the total sterling cost is not knowable at signing.
This is a genuine planning question rather than a speculative one. Some buyers convert at each instalment and accept the variation, some use forward contracts to fix a rate for scheduled payments, and some hold dollars already and the question does not arise.
We do not forecast currency and we would treat anyone in this industry who does with caution. What we would say is that the deposit schedule is the input to the decision, so get it in writing early, and take the question to a currency specialist rather than to a sales gallery.
British buyers overwhelmingly buy for part year use rather than as a pure holding, which makes flight convenience, the months they will actually be there, and the building’s rental restrictions more important than the amenity list.
The rental restriction question is the one most likely to be discovered late. A building with a strict minimum lease term does not support a buyer who intends to let for short periods when absent, and that provision sits in the condominium documents rather than in the brochure.
Ask about it before you fall in love with a plan. It has its own note, and it is the most common mismatch we see between what a buyer intended and what the building permits.
Almost every British buyer we speak to has been told the buying process is easy, and almost none of them have been told about the estate exposure until after they closed. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier early and we will make the introductions in both jurisdictions before the question becomes expensive.
We are a brokerage, not advisers, and we will not pretend otherwise on a question this consequential. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will go through the current position on any building we cover, including the parts a sales gallery would rather skip. Where a question is legal, tax or structuring, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.