Terms drafted for commercial protection rather than immigration requirements — recoverable deposits, and deferred payments secured against the business being purchased.
Good deal terms, wrong requirements
A well-advised buyer negotiates protections: a deposit recoverable on several conditions, a price partly deferred and paid from the business's own earnings, security taken over the acquired assets. Every one of those is sensible commercially and every one of them weakens the immigration position, because the requirement is capital irrevocably committed and genuinely at risk, and funds secured by the enterprise's assets are not the investor's qualifying capital. The resolution is not to abandon protection but to design it knowing both purposes. That is only possible while the agreement is in draft. A Douro-Dummer contractor who signs a conventional purchase agreement and then seeks advice is asking whether a document written for other reasons happens to satisfy conditions nobody considered, and the answer is often no.
Provisions that concern consular officers include requirements for unanimous consent on operating decisions, a minority veto over hiring or spending within normal ranges, a deadlock mechanism that hands control to the minority, or a management agreement placing operations with someone else.