Family office: the questions families bring to us.

A family office is a team or company that runs the affairs of one or more families with capital: investments, ownership structures, tax, succession, family governance and asset administration. A bank or asset manager is responsible for the portfolio it’s given. A family office coordinates the family’s capital as a whole, including the work of banks, managers and lawyers.

Deloitte Private (2024) counts 8,030 single-family offices worldwide, 2,020 of them in Europe, up 31% since 2019.

UMFO treats family capital as more than money: financial, operational, tangible, intellectual, human, and reputational and social. The first three pass to the next generation through ownership. The others pass only when the family works on it.

A multi-family office serves several families with one team. A single-family office works for one family only.

An own office gives full control and privacy, but the family hires the team and carries the fixed costs. A multi-family office shares the team, expertise and adviser network across families, so it’s accessible with less capital.

For a family that is just building a system to manage its capital, a multi-family office is often the first step. Some functions can later move into a family’s own office.

A virtual (outsourced) family office performs family office functions without the family hiring its own staff. An external team coordinates the capital and works with the family’s banks, lawyers, tax advisers and managers.

Typical functions: an asset and ownership register, a calendar of decisions and mandatory reporting, preparing family meetings, comparing offers from banks and managers, and an annual capital review.

It suits a family for whom an own office is still too expensive, but whose assets, countries and advisers already need one person or team holding the whole picture. A virtual office is part of UMFO’s services.

There’s no single threshold. What matters is how complex the capital is: more jurisdictions, businesses, generations and owners mean more decisions someone has to coordinate.

Campden Wealth (Operational Excellence Report, 2025, 146 family offices) puts the average running cost at 0.61% of assets a year for offices under $250M, 0.40% for $250M to $1B, and 0.20% above $1B. At 0.61%, a family with $50M would spend about $300,000 a year on its own office.

That’s why smaller families tend to choose a multi-family office. UMFO works with families with capital from €5 million. Fees depend on how the capital is structured and how many family members take part; we discuss them in the introductory conversation.

Banks and asset managers are responsible for the money entrusted to them. A family office coordinates all of the family’s decisions about capital, including the choice of banks and managers, and compares their offers.

Private banks usually don’t handle business succession, family governance, ownership across several countries or next-generation preparation. A family office doesn’t sell financial products.

A family with capital usually has both: banks, and a family office that works with them.

The key question is how the office gets paid. If part of its income comes from commissions on financial products, it has an interest in what it recommends. Ask for every source of fees in writing.

Also ask who will actually work with your family and how many families that person handles; which jurisdictions the team has experience with; how the family’s data is kept confidential; which documents and reports the family receives and how often; and what stays with the family if it ends the relationship.

Ask for an anonymised example of similar work and talk to several offices before choosing. At UMFO, the documents prepared during the Diagnostic stay with the family whether or not it continues.

UMFO works with families with capital from €5 million whose business, assets and members are spread across several countries. Most often it’s one of three situations: a founder whose first assets are already abroad; a second generation with a diversified portfolio across several jurisdictions; a next generation stepping into family capital.

Most often these are families whose capital was built in one country and whose life now runs across several. Typical signs: first-generation capital, part of the assets or the business still at home, and a move that happened one to five years ago.

UMFO also works with owners preparing to sell their business or who have just sold it.

UMFO partners: Tetiana Honcharenko (strategy, investments, jurisdictions), Oleksandra Nikitina (corporate and tax law, international jurisdictions), Oksana Guliaieva (family governance, team building, asset revitalisation). Working languages: Ukrainian and English.

The first step is a 30-minute introductory conversation with one of the partners, free of charge. If the family’s task and UMFO’s expertise fit, the next step is the Diagnostic.

The Diagnostic takes six weeks and 5 to 7 sessions: interviews with the owner, their partner, adult children, the business’s finance director and key outside advisers, a joint family session and a final presentation. The family receives a one-page framing note, a 15–20 page report, a first investment policy statement (IPS) and a stress protocol. The documents stay with the family whether or not it continues with UMFO.

After the Diagnostic the family can move to ongoing support.

The three tools work differently. A gift transfers the share now: the children become owners immediately and the owner gives up rights to what was given. A will takes effect after the owner’s death and can be changed at any time. Under an inheritance agreement, the recipient gets the property after the owner’s death but meets agreed conditions during the owner’s lifetime.

With a will, remember the compulsory share: minor and disabled children, a disabled spouse and parents are entitled to part of the estate whatever the will says. For a share in a Ukrainian LLC, check the charter for restrictions on transferring shares and whether other members must consent to a new owner.

The choice depends on when the owner is ready to hand over control, whether they want to keep the right to change their mind, and where the children live: tax consequences differ for Ukrainian residents and non-residents.

Take the most common case among our families: the business is in Ukraine and the family lives in the EU.

Start with each family member’s tax residency. It decides inheritance tax, how dividends are taxed and whether controlled foreign company (CFC) reporting applies.

In Ukraine, inheritance between close relatives who are both residents is taxed at 0%, other resident heirs pay 5%, and if either the deceased or the heir is non-resident the personal income tax rate is 18% (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, 2026). So one family member moving abroad can change the tax outcome for everyone.

Check residency under Ukrainian rules and the rules of the country of residence; whether there is a double tax treaty; how shares in the Ukrainian company are held and who can run it while the owner is abroad; whether CFC reporting applies; which accounts fall under CRS exchange.

There’s no universal answer. A holding company groups operating businesses and simplifies managing shares and dividends. A trust separates legal ownership from benefit: a trustee manages the assets for the beneficiaries. A private foundation is a separate legal entity that owns assets under a charter written by its founder.

For a family with Ukrainian tax residents, any foreign structure has consequences in Ukraine: controlled foreign company (CFC) rules, disclosure of ultimate beneficial owners and automatic exchange of account data under CRS. A structure that ignores each family member’s residency will have to be rebuilt.

So the choice starts with the purpose (passing capital to the next generation, protection from risks, joint management, tax) and with where the owners and beneficiaries live. Only then choose the jurisdiction and the form.

If the owner left no instructions, the company can run for months without anyone entitled to make decisions. Heirs take over only after the statutory period for accepting the inheritance. Until then, management powers and access to accounts depend on the company’s charter and powers of attorney. For a share in a Ukrainian LLC it matters whether the charter requires the other members’ consent for an heir to join.

What to prepare in advance: a will or inheritance agreement; charter provisions on inheriting shares; powers of attorney for interim management; a list of assets, accounts and access rights known to someone besides the owner; a stress protocol for the family and management for the first weeks.

A family strategy session is a meeting where the family agrees the purpose of its capital, the roles of family members and its first decisions for the next few years. The facilitator prepares the session, runs it by agreed rules and records the agreements.

An outside facilitator helps because every family member has a position and a history with the others, including the owner, who usually leads the conversation. A neutral person gives everyone a say, keeps to the agenda and doesn’t take sides.

How UMFO works: before the session a partner talks separately with each adult participant and agrees the agenda and rules with the owner; during the session she runs the discussion and records decisions, owners and deadlines; afterwards the family receives minutes and a list of next steps. A session can stand alone or be part of the Diagnostic.

A family council is a regular meeting where family members make decisions about shared capital under agreed rules. It’s needed once there is more than one owner or decision-maker: adult successors, several branches of the family or co-owners.

A family council doesn’t replace company governance. The board is responsible for the business. The family council is responsible for the family’s relationship with its capital.

UMFO helps define the council’s members, powers, agenda, voting rules, minutes and follow-up on decisions, and facilitates the first meetings until the family runs them itself.

Start before the first conversations with a buyer. Some decisions, including the owner’s tax residency and the ownership structure, can’t be changed once the deal is signed.

What to prepare: a clean ownership structure with no unregistered shares or debts between related parties; management and financial reporting a buyer can verify; a management team that runs the business without the owner’s daily involvement; a tax model of the deal for the owner and the family; and the family’s agreement on the sale, so no co-owner objects mid-process.

A separate question is what the family will do with the proceeds. It’s easier to agree the purpose of the capital and the decision rules before the sale. Pre-exit preparation and deal support are part of UMFO’s services.

Don’t rush to invest in the first months after the deal. First settle the tax consequences, the purpose of the capital and the rules by which the family will make decisions.

A sale turns operating capital into financial capital. An owner who spent years deciding about a company now decides about a portfolio, and the risks are different.

Before and after the deal: check tax residency before signing; decide how much the family keeps in liquid assets; write down an investment policy (50% of family offices surveyed in the UBS Global Family Office Report 2026 have one); agree who in the family takes part in decisions.

Not wanting to run the company doesn’t mean stepping away from the family’s capital. A successor can stay out of the business and still be a co-owner, a member of the family council or part of investment decisions.

Separate three questions: who will run the business, who will own it and who will take part in decisions about the capital. If no one in the family wants to run it, the options are professional management overseen by the owners, or a sale followed by managing the financial capital.

UMFO Academy builds a separate next-generation programme for each family.

Yes. UMFO Academy builds a next-generation programme for each family. Topics, format and participants are agreed after a conversation with the owners and separately with each adult participant.

The programme covers six stages: the family capital system; personal role and responsibility; partnership, negotiation and reputation; strategy and execution; assets, finance and ownership structures; joint decisions and digital tools. Formats: three-hour online overview sessions, an in-depth online format with practice, or a family session followed by online modules.

The next generation can practise in a separate group without parents. A participant’s personal materials are shared with the family only with their consent. The programme doesn’t oblige anyone to work in the family business.

Yes. Some topics need specialists outside the UMFO team: psychology and personal development, family relationships, negotiation, finance, corporate governance. UMFO keeps a register of authors with their own programmes in these areas and a register of programmes from business schools and professional networks.

Selection starts with the family’s request and what the successor already knows. UMFO then proposes several programmes, explains how they differ and agrees the format, scope and terms with the author. The family receives authors’ names in the proposal once the author has agreed to take part.

External programmes can be combined with UMFO Academy or taken on their own.

The figure shouldn’t be treated as established fact. It comes from Williams and Preisser (2003), whose methodology was never published. James Grubman (Family Firm Institute, 2022) showed it is the inverse of a 30% continuity rate in Ward’s 1987 study of 200 manufacturing companies in one US state. Baron and Lachenauer (Harvard Business Review) traced a similar “70% of family businesses don’t reach the second generation” figure to a single 1980s Illinois study.

More reliable data points to a different problem, preparing the next generation: according to the UBS Global Family Office Report 2026, 27% of family offices work on next-generation preparation and 13% describe the next generation as fully engaged.

Start with the task: relocation, inheritance, a business sale and ownership structuring need different specialists. Then check whether the adviser has worked with your jurisdictions, who will actually handle the matter, whether the firm has conflicts of interest, how fees are calculated and whether the adviser will work alongside the family’s other specialists.

UMFO keeps a public register of service providers for families with capital: more than 600 companies from open sources, every card linked to its source. The register isn’t a ranking and makes no recommendations.

The registry is part of UMFO’s work with the family. When a question belongs to a specialist, we use the registry to choose a provider in the family’s city and hand the question over.

No. UMFO runs no concierge service. Residence permits, schools, bank accounts and relocation paperwork are handled by the family’s own people and by providers from the UMFO registry: lawyers, banks, tax advisers, relocation and education specialists in the cities where our families live.

A question stays with UMFO when it touches the family, the money and the values at the same time: who takes over the business, what the capital is for after a sale, whether an heir receives a share without a role. When a question touches two of the three, it has its specialist, and we hand it over through the registry.

Family Life Configuration is the UMFO method, and it works on five levels. The first is the life the family wants: one sheet, twenty years ahead, with the price of that future in money, time and attention. The second is the configuration: where the family lives, where the capital sits, where decisions are made and who takes part. The third and fourth are access, which has to stay reachable under any scenario, and the mechanisms chosen to fit the configuration: statuses, structures, accounts and documents. The fifth is execution, which stays with the family’s people and providers from the registry.