Service H4 

Overseas property handholding service

This service is all about empowering you and supporting you, while you search for and acquire overseas property. Like al our handholding services you use it as little or as much as you want, do what you want yourself and ask us to do some or all.

This page starts out with a general explanation of handholding service and further sown lookes specifically at the H4 service.

Introduction to handholding services

The handholding services are an executive service like the H3 finding service, and makes use of the same experts and our whole range of club contacts. It is designed to empower you rather than undertake a task and to be an on-demand service, so you can make as little or as much use as you want of it.

Handholding as the name suggests involves being available to you, and talking through projects with you so as to minimize the chance of you making mistakes. It is a form of consultancy, but designed not to do a job for you, but to empower you to do it yourself. So it, in part teaches you techniques or skills, and in part is a sounding board for you to try out your ideas or plans with, as well as a source of knowledge. If you feel you want your adviser to go to a meeting with you or check something out for you then he will.

There is a distinct difference between undertaking a task for you and empowering you to do it yourself. With the first you will, in the future, also need to use a service, while with the second you gain the skills to undertake it yourself. The amount of handholding you may feel you need will vary from one person to another, and this is an on demand service so you choose when you want handholding. You make all your decisions, he is there just to advise you and to make sure you are aware of options that perhaps you have not considered.

Take for example a property finding operation for 'buy to let', you might decide you need help to define your needs and know where to look, then feel confident to go looking at properties on your own, coming back for more handholding when you think you have found the ideal property and want to check out the plan ahead from there. From this meeting you progress well, until an unexpected problem arises and you need to talk it over, not again using the service until you decide to sell the property and then looking at how you could get the maximum return on it.

Using the finding services requires a registration fee for the service, which includes the first meeting of up to half a day at the directors home and office in the Cotswold's, you can be picked up from and returned to Cheltenham railway station if you want to travel by train. Beyond this you are charged on a an hourly basis, with a minimum billing on any call of 15 minutes, plus if you want him to go anywhere else in the UK the time involved  plus a mileage charge. Any other costs you want him to incur are covered at cost by you. The fees vary from one of the handholding services to another in line with the cost of keeping the knowledge required up to date.

There are three handholding services in this group, and two more from the service menu, 

• Handholding overseas property 
• Handholding UK buy to let, this can include the sourcing or property right through to eventually selling a property
• Handholding UK self build

If during the first meeting, you decide instead of the handholding service to use the H3 service then the initial registration for the handholding service is credited in full towards the first stage of the H3 fees.

Other handholding services in relation to selling and business management are on separate pages available from the main club services page of the property pension club website.

The H4 service

The H4 handholding overseas service, shares many features with the H3 Executive USA finding service, and utilizes the skills of the same team.  So how do they differ.

As you can see they are quite different in approach, in that the first is an all inclusive service working on prearranged charges, while the second is a skills and support package where you do most of the tasks yourself but get help when required.

On your first USA project, it would be cheaper, quicker and you would most likely get a lower cost property by using the H3 service, but if you want a property in France, or Spain or one of the developing countries then this is not provided within the H3 service, and you can expect both more problems within these countries and less effective help from the handholding service, for while it has the experiences of many club members to draw upon and many contacts, the amount of direct experience is lower.

If you decided to buy a large number of properties in the USA, then becoming empowered to be able to do this yourself might work out to be economic in the longer term. In any new venture there is a learning curve, you make more mistakes, forget things that cause delays and miss opportunities, and while in the case of the first few it is likely to cost you more in total than you save over using the H3 service, in the longer term you could gain the experience and may be able to approach the effectiveness of the H3 service but of course without the fees, however you will still have costs and have an enormous amount of research to do and keep on top off. 

Booking the H4 service

First email or call and check that more clients can be taken on this service at this time. Also get the address and details of who to make the registration fee payable. Post this in, with a note including your name, address, telephone number, and stating that the fee enclosed is for registration on the H4 service. Once your cheque has been cleared you will be called and a mutually convenient date arranged. If the first meting is urgent there are ways to arrange things faster, involving the payment of cash for the registration fee directly to a local bank near you, we will tell you the bank and account number and can detect the payment has been made on line.

There is no small print, or contract you have to sign before attending, and at the first meeting you will just sign a letter agreeing to the fee structure and agreeing to pay all bills within 14 days.

At the first meeting

Remember if you wish to come by rail, you can be collected and returned  (usually in a Jaguar Sovereign) from Cheltenham station.

The first meeting is all about finding out what you want to achieve, why, your level of current knowledge and skills, and identifying with you a plan of action that will allow you to move rapidly ahead. Its a chance to identify what help you will need and how this is best met.  The definition of your search is then worked out or options explored that will allow you to firm this up later. Beyond this depending on your wishes, needs, and the plan agreed, you may be shown new skills, discuss a wide range of topics, or get straight into defining what you can go and see. This meeting can last up to 4 hours, but you may find that all that you want to have achieved is done in less time or that its just too intense and that you have as much as you can sensibly take in at the meeting.

This meeting can start at any level you like, for example you may just know you want to invest in property but not know where, or you may have a definite area you have already decided upon, or anything in between.

If your interest is USA property it may be that on seeing all that is involved, and considering the cost of doing the search, you decide that the H3 service would be better for you. The meeting can accomplish the first meeting for the H3 service and the registration fee be converted over to pay a part of the first payment on this service instead.