Finance Advice for U.S. Expats in Spain

Finding the right financial advisor isn’t easy. Nor is moving to Spain from a country where mostly English is spoken. If you were hoping to mix the two: encounter a talented financial advisor after moving to Spain, your choices weren’t good.

Until now, that is.

Peter Dougherty is the Wall Street-trained, Spanish-speaking, Ivy League-educated American who loves both Spain and helping individuals and families with their financial planning. In fact, he’s the first American to be certified as a Financial Planner in Spain. He’s also the author of two books explaining how Spanish and American tax and financial rules sometimes – but not often – fit together.

But these aren’t the best reasons to meet with him: Mr. Dougherty’s empathy is. He’ll ask good question. He’ll listen to your answers.

Peter tells the story of not liking tax season as a youngster. It’s when his optimistic, cheerful father wasn’t his typical self. His dad was intelligent, but filing the family tax forms was a difficult task for him that used a vocabulary that wasn’t his own. Mr. Dougherty remembers that. He believes that’s the reason he wrote his two books: “The Dougherty Code: Secrets of Financial Planning in Spain Revealed” and “La Hoja de Ruta Fiscal y Financiera para los españoles en EE.UU”. In both books, he tries to give the most enjoyably brief introduction to the vocabulary of finance and taxes that he can.

It's why professional book reviewer BookViral ranks his first book, “The Dougherty Code”, among the best financial planning books it has reviewed, and adds: “Dougherty has a genuine desire to improve the financial health of his clients.”

It's also why Peter chose to work at BISSAN Wealth Management, Spain’s boutique financial planning firm. Convinced that BISSAN’s local experts would provide his clients the needed complement to his own skills, he signed on as a financial planner. That’s proven to be the correct choice. As Mr. Dougherty himself says, “What I’ve discovered over time is that BISSAN’s method for helping families with their financial plans is second to none. And I don’t mean simply within Spain, I mean in all of Europe.”

This doesn’t mean his task has been easy. Finances are a persistent challenge for people relocating to countries where language barriers as well as differing rules and systems make things difficult. Unexpected complications are frequent. As Peter points out, “Additionally, Spain has less financial culture compared to the U.S. This may be because it’s more common in America to talk about economic issues related to, for example, a person's salary or what they have paid for their home. The result is that if you’re living in Spain and looking for financial advice, hiring a native English-speaker working as part of a team of talented Spaniards will always be your best option.”

Peter Dougherty – author of “The Dougherty Code: Secrets of Financial Planning in Spain Revealed” and “La Hoja de Ruta Fiscal y Financiera para los españoles en EE.UU”. – is a financial planner at BISSAN Wealth Management in Spain. He’s certified as a European Financial Planner (EFP) by the European Financial Planning Association of Spain, as a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor® and a Foreign Account Tax Compliance (FATCA) specialist in the United States, and as an Investment Adviser Representative by the North American Securities Administrators Association.

BISSAN Wealth Management, EAF, S.L., is an independent financial advisory company in Spain which is authorized and supervised by Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).  It has offices in both Barcelona and Bilbao.