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A structure without a governance layer around it just relocates the family's disputes into a more expensive venue. The documents below exist to make sure that doesn't happen.
← 3. Investment Strategy5. Tax & Cross-Border →
← 3. Investment Strategy5. Tax & Cross-Border →
Wills, and where they stop working
A will governs what a person owns personally at death. It does not, on its own, govern assets already held inside a trust or company, those follow the trust deed's succession terms or the company's own ownership and nomination structure instead. Coordinating the two, so the will and the entity structure tell the same story rather than conflicting ones, is one of the most common gaps we find in family offices built without that coordination from the start.
The family constitution
A written charter setting out decision rights (who decides what, and by what majority), the criteria for the next generation entering the business or the investment committee, and a defined process for resolving disagreements before they become disputes. Not a legal requirement, but the single document most correlated with a family office surviving a generational transition intact.
Investment committee and board composition
For the LLP or company holding the family's active capital, who sits on the investment committee, what needs unanimous versus majority approval, and how new family members are added over time, decided once, in writing, rather than renegotiated informally each time a decision comes up.
Where the trust's succession is built in
If a private trust is part of the structure, succession for those assets is largely handled by the trust deed itself: named beneficiaries, trustee succession provisions, and distribution terms, which is precisely why trusts remain the default vehicle when succession is the primary goal.
Talk to us about your family office.
Where a will and a trust deed can quietly conflict
A common failure pattern: a will written years after the trust was settled leaves a specific asset "to my children equally," not realising that asset was already transferred into the trust and is therefore governed by the trust deed's own distribution terms, not the will. The result isn't a clean outcome: it's two documents making conflicting promises, resolved only by whichever is legally controlling for that asset, usually after a dispute rather than before one. We review the will and every entity's governing document together, specifically to catch this before it becomes a dispute.
Common questions
Does a family constitution need to be legally registered?
No. It isn't a statutory instrument, but it should be signed by the family members it binds and treated with the same seriousness as one, since its value comes entirely from the family actually adhering to it, not from any external enforceability.
How often should the constitution and investment committee terms be revisited?
At every generational transition, at minimum, and whenever the family's composition changes meaningfully: a document that isn't updated as the next generation enters the business or the investment committee tends to be quietly ignored rather than formally amended.
Succession and governance.
Wills, trusts, and roles: coordinated before the transition, not after.
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Talk to us about your family office.
Bring the situation, however incomplete; leave with a written, fixed-fee plan for the structure, on the same calendar as everything else we file for you.