Episode 3 of 10
Choosing a Multifamily Office: Services to Expect
A multifamily office should make complex financial work easier to coordinate. It may provide investment oversight, planning, reporting, administration, and family support through one team. The exact package varies, so we should define the work before comparing firms.
Family Office Service Providers & Partners - What to Know
Start with the core job
A multifamily office serves several unrelated families from a shared platform. The firm may combine its own staff with outside specialists. The goal is coordination around the family's needs, rather than selling one product. A useful first step is to write down the decisions and tasks that currently fall between advisors. Those gaps often show where a multifamily office can help.
Investment oversight and reporting
Most multifamily offices coordinate investment work. That can include setting an investment policy, reviewing managers, monitoring risk, handling cash needs, and consolidating performance reports. Some firms manage portfolios directly. Others act as an outsourced chief investment officer and supervise banks, asset managers, private funds, and specialist managers. Ask whether the firm is acting as a fiduciary, how conflicts are handled, and which assets appear in the reporting system. The Securities and Exchange Commission describes a family office as an entity that provides advice about securities only to family clients, which helps explain why investment advice is often part of the service model. Source: SEC, Family Office Rule, https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2011/ia-3220.pdf
One of the most important private investor, lessons to be more effective, I think, is to play your own unique game. If you don't know what game you should be playing, then others will inform you and they'll design a game for you that benefits them.
Tax, estate, and legal coordination
A multifamily office usually does not replace the family's lawyer or certified public accountant. It can organize the work, maintain a calendar, gather documents, and make sure the right specialists are included in major decisions. Common coordination areas include tax reporting, estate documents, trusts, insurance, charitable giving, and business interests. The firm may prepare some work in-house or refer it to an outside professional. Confirm who is responsible for each deliverable, who signs the work, and how information moves between advisors. PwC lists tax, legal, estate planning, philanthropy, and family governance among common family office capabilities. Source: PwC, Family Office Services, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/private-company-services/family-office.html
Administration and a single view of the family balance sheet
Administrative support can be as valuable as portfolio advice. Services may include bill payment, cash management, bookkeeping, document storage, entity records, insurance schedules, and consolidated reporting. A strong reporting process should show assets, liabilities, ownership, liquidity, and commitments in a format the family can review. Ask how often reports are delivered, how private assets are valued, and how errors are corrected. Also ask whether the platform can include operating businesses, real estate, private funds, art, aircraft, or other assets that sit outside a brokerage account.
One of the points I want to make is that as a family office, you need to figure out what your strengths are, where you want to focus your energy, and really what game you want to be playing, because your background is different than the person sitting next to you at the table.
Risk, security, and continuity
Families with several entities and residences need a process for risk management. A multifamily office may coordinate insurance reviews, cybersecurity practices, privacy procedures, emergency planning, and vendor oversight. It may also help document who can act if a principal is unavailable. These services should be specific. Ask what is monitored, who receives alerts, and which tasks are handled by the office versus an outside provider. The family should understand the firm's data security controls and its plan for business disruption. Review outside providers at least as part of the office's recurring oversight, including their responsibilities and costs.
Family governance and next-generation support
A family office can help families hold regular meetings, record decisions, educate younger members, and clarify roles around shared assets. It may support a family mission statement, a philanthropic process, or a policy for employing relatives. These services are facilitation and administration. They do not guarantee agreement. Ask whether the office has a repeatable process, who leads meetings, and how confidential information is managed across generations. Clarify which decisions stay with family principals, which are delegated, and which require committee approval.
How to compare service menus
Service lists can look similar while the delivery model differs. For each requested service, record the named provider, scope, response time, fee method, and any outside costs. Separate included work from optional projects. Ask for a sample quarterly report and a sample annual service calendar. Review the firm's firms directory, local options in /locations/, and related guides and questions before taking meetings. A clear scope makes proposals easier to compare.
Checklist
- List the five tasks or decisions you most need coordinated, then ask each firm who owns them.
- Request a written service matrix showing included work, optional work, outside providers, and fees.
- Review a sample report and confirm how private assets, liabilities, entities, and cash needs are presented.
Takeaway
Choose the multifamily office that can clearly own your priority tasks, coordinate outside professionals, and show the work in reports you can use.