What to settle before you hire an estate manager
Hiring a senior estate manager goes best when the family has settled a few things first: what the role covers, whom it answers to, what it may decide alone and what good looks like. This page sets them out from the estate manager's side of the table, for owners and for the family offices and advisers who run the search.
I look after estates of several hundred million dollars and run them quietly, as homes rather than assets.
What the role covers
An estate manager is accountable for the whole estate: the property, the grounds, the budget, the household team, maintenance, works and suppliers. A house manager runs the daily operation of one residence. Decide which of the two the household needs before anyone writes a brief. A house manager asked to carry an estate manager's weight will struggle, and an estate manager given a house manager's remit will find little to do. If you are unsure, household staff and when a family needs an estate manager sets out the difference.
Settle the scope across the residences
List every property the role is meant to cover, including guest houses and grounds, and say how each is used: lived in all year, seasonal, let, or under works. Then decide whether one person answers for all of them, with a house manager in each, or whether some stay outside the role. In my experience, one standard across every residence holds best when one person is accountable for it.
Say, too, where the role begins. Opening a new estate and taking over an established estate are different jobs, and the right candidate for one is not always the right candidate for the other.
Decide the reporting line
An estate manager can report to the principal, to one member of the family, or through an intermediary such as a director of residences, a chief of staff or the family's management company. Each can work. In my experience, what does not work is two lines at once, where the family asks for one thing and the office approves another.
I work alongside family offices and advisers, and the division is simple: the family office looks after the assets; the estate team looks after the homes. Agree who receives which reports, how often and in what form, before the first day rather than after the first misunderstanding.
Agree authority and budget sign-off
The aim is that the family is asked only what it wants to be asked. That takes one conversation at the start: an annual budget approved once, a level below which the estate manager decides alone, and a clear route for anything above it. Settle in the same way who signs supplier contracts, who approves capital works and who hires and dismisses staff.
When this is clear, the owner can leave the running of the estate entirely to the estate manager. When it is not, every decision drifts back to the family. The estate as a commitment explains what an estate costs to run and why the budget only makes sense once the owner's wishes are known.
Confidentiality comes before the first interview
A confidentiality agreement is necessary, but it is not discretion. Discretion is how someone behaves when no one is watching, and the search itself is the first test of it. Describe the role without naming the family or the address until the final stage, and share the diary, the guest list and travel plans on a need-to-know basis from the start. Estate security covers how this carries into the running of the house.
The household team and its structure
Be honest with candidates about the team they will inherit: who stays, who will report to them, and whether security, chauffeurs and the family's personal staff sit inside the household or alongside it. Draw the structure on paper first, so that the new estate manager joins a household with clear lines rather than having to discover them.
Standards: the owner's own
An estate run to a general standard of excellence can still feel wrong to the person who owns it. Say whether the household's standards are written down, followed in practice, or held in the heads of long-serving staff. Say, too, how the family feels about new tools; AI on the estate sets out what is real now.
Plan the handover and the first months
Decide who hands over: an outgoing manager, the family office or a senior member of the team. Then decide the pace. In my experience, most households are best served by a new estate manager who learns how the house really runs before changing it. Some owners want a complete change, quickly. Either is reasonable, but say which at the outset, because it changes who you should hire.
How to judge candidates
- Ask how they would learn the house before changing anything, and listen for the owner in the answer.
- Ask for one decision they took without troubling the family, and one they brought to the family. The line between the two tells you more than a list of duties.
- Notice how they speak about past households. A candidate who names former principals or their homes in an interview may well one day speak about yours.
- Take careful references and make proper checks.
- Let them meet the people they will work with most closely, including the family office.
Questions families ask
- What should a family settle before hiring an estate manager?
- The scope across every residence, the reporting line, the budget and the limits of the estate manager's authority, confidentiality, the structure of the household team, the standards expected and how the handover will run.
- Should an estate manager report to the family directly or through someone else?
- Any of these can work. The estate manager may report to the family directly, or through a director of residences, a chief of staff or the family's management company. What matters is that there is one line, and that everyone knows who approves what.
- What is the difference between an estate manager and a house manager?
- A house manager runs the daily operation of one residence. An estate manager is accountable for the whole estate and its budget, often across several residences.
- How can a family judge an estate manager's discretion?
- By how the candidate speaks about past households. Someone who keeps former principals and their homes private in an interview is likely to keep yours private too. References and proper checks confirm it.
To read more about how I run estates, start at hendrikengel.com.
- linkedin.com/in/hendrik-engel1975