A Simple guide to family office services

What are family office services?

Family office services encompass a broad range of professional support, dedicated to meeting ultra-high-net-worth families’ financial and personal needs. At the heart of these services is a focus on wealth preservation, which involves protecting family assets and ensuring that they continue accumulating over generations. This is accomplished through wealth management, effective risk management, and strategic tax solutions.

In addition to managing financial matters, family offices may also handle investment strategies that align with the family’s unique goals, risk appetite, and investment timelines. They also play a significant role in legacy planning, ensuring wealth transfer across generations, and engaging in philanthropy that reflects their values.

In fact, a recent Simple poll asked family offices which services they anticipate will increase in importance over the next couple of years. The results were as follows:

Wealth management and advisory services

If the goal is preserving and growing family wealth, then wealth management and investment services are at the top of the family office services’ list. How these services manifest depends on the individual family office. For instance, some families’ wealth may be tied up in a family business, while others are managing wealth passed down by previous generations.

A family office itself may be in charge of managing the family’s assets, or it could outsource the task to an investment advisor or other financial institution. Either way, where there’s a family office, a designated lead or team exists to help manage the family’s private wealth.

Estate and succession planning

The end goal of “preserving and growing” wealth is to ensure it reaches future generations. While not at the top of the list of services and quite often neglected until forced to undertake the planning due to unforeseen circumstances, handling estate planning and succession planning services presents an opportunity for family offices to shine.

If you’ve watched the series Succession, you will understand the value of having professional and impartial outsiders handle the intricacies of distributing wealth and passing down assets to family members. Whether handled in-house or outsourced to external advisors, the impact of estate and succession planning will affect the longevity of any family office.

Global structuring and jurisdiction choices

Where a family office is established can be just as important as how it is structured. Jurisdictional choices affect tax efficiency, privacy, access to financial expertise, and even succession outcomes. Families often weigh several factors, from regulatory requirements and political stability to lifestyle considerations and ease of doing business.

Some of the most established hubs include:

Singapore – attractive tax incentives such as 13O and 13U schemes, strong financial regulation, and a growing ecosystem of global family offices.

United Arab Emirates – residency pathways like the Golden Visa, progressive policies on digital assets, and a cosmopolitan lifestyle.

Switzerland – renowned for its discretion, heritage, and robust financial services sector, with proximity to European markets.

United States – Delaware and Wyoming remain popular for trust and LLC structures, offering flexibility and strong legal frameworks.

Choosing the right jurisdiction depends on the family’s priorities, whether that is optimising for tax, securing confidentiality, or tapping into a particular regional network. In practice, many families use a hybrid approach, combining entities across jurisdictions to balance efficiency with diversification of risk.

Philanthropy and impact investing

Doing good just feels good, and philanthropy or impact investing is one area where a family office can actually extend its family values to the greater society. Now, how that takes shape depends on the family’s values.

Some families are content to form an outside foundation to tackle all work on the ground – think the Gates Foundation. Others focus their entire family office operations on their philanthropic endeavours – think The Ballmer Group. While charitable giving can take many forms, experts agree that it’s an undeniable way to get the next generation involved.

Lifestyle and concierge services

For the non-financial, or rather, let’s say, the “preserving” side of family office wealth management, looking after the well-being of the principal and other family members can inadvertently fall on the family office staff. Lifestyle and concierge services, whether offered by individuals or companies, play a crucial role in supporting various facets of personal life, such as lifestyle choices, household management, and travel planning.

This family office service encompasses a range of services where family offices are tasked with meeting their clients’ lifestyle needs. These can include anything from booking family vacations, managing travel arrangements and handling personal security.

Family governance and education

Governance involves creating structures, like family councils or charters, to guide decision-making, resolve conflicts, and align family members on shared goals and values. It’s all about developing frameworks that promote transparency and accountability and, perhaps most importantly, prevent family disputes that could fracture wealth or relationships.

A well-structured governance model often includes a family constitution (outlining values and principles), regular family assemblies for alignment, and a family council to handle ongoing communication. These measures not only preserve wealth but also strengthen relationships by providing clarity around roles and expectations.

Education, meanwhile, equips the next generation with the skills to manage the family wealth responsibly. This can include financial literacy programs, mentorship on investment strategies, or training in philanthropy and leadership. By involving younger members early – through family meetings or internships within the family office – families build a sense of stewardship. Tailored to each family’s dynamics, these efforts ensure wealth isn’t just preserved but thrives across generations, balancing individual aspirations with collective goals.

Outsourced and virtual family offices

Not every family requires or wants the overhead of a dedicated office. Increasingly, families are opting to outsource specific functions – such as tax structuring, legal services, cybersecurity, or investment management – to trusted external providers. Some even use virtual family office models, combining technology platforms with a network of specialist advisors.

This approach can deliver flexibility and efficiency, particularly for families below the threshold for a single-family office, while still maintaining control over strategic decisions.