International buyer financing 101

International buyers entering the Miami market often arrive with the wire already cleared on their side and the U.S. side still unsettled. The result: a deal in contract, a seller in inspection, and a wire sitting in a correspondent bank because the entity was opened after, not before. Three decisions determine whether your timeline is 14 days or 60. First, entity selection. A single-purpose Delaware LLC owned by a foreign trust is the most flexible structure for FIRPTA, estate tax exposure, and exit. Open the LLC before the wire ever leaves. Second, the banking introduction. Miami private banks — City National, BAC Florida, Mercantil — have specific desk relationships for non-resident buyers. The introduction matters; the cold-walk-in path takes three weeks. Third, the attorney coordination. Cross-border tax counsel and the U.S. closing attorney need to be aligned at offer, not at contract. Buyers who treat the financing path as a parallel workstream — not a downstream one — close on the original timeline. The rest renegotiate the closing date.