Hendrik Engel

Working with the family office: decision rights, spend and reporting

By Hendrik Engel, Director of Residences and Senior Estate Manager for UHNW and multi-billionaire families, single or multi-property, with experience working for centi-billionaires.

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. In my view the two have to work as one, because the homes are among the family's assets and the assets pay for the homes. This page sets out how I make that relationship work in practice: who decides what, who approves spend, and how often the estate reports.

Where the estate sits in the family office

Family office services typically include property management, alongside accounting, payroll and legal affairs,14 and a private bank's governance paper lists it among the lifestyle services a family office may provide or coordinate.1 Agency guides describe the estate manager as managing the estate's operating budget, tracking expenditure and reporting to the principal or their family office,2 and show the senior estate role reporting to "Principal / Family Office".3

Which of the two it is matters less, in my experience, than that there is only one line. Settling it is a hiring decision, covered in who an estate manager should report to. This page is about what happens afterwards, once the line is in place. If you are still deciding which senior role the household needs, see estate manager, house manager or chief of staff.

Decision rights: what the estate manager decides, and what goes up

I find it helps to sort decisions into three groups and write them down:

  • Decided by the estate: the daily running of the houses, routine maintenance, the household team's rotas and training, and spending within the approved budget.
  • Decided by the estate, then reported: larger repairs within budget, replacing a supplier, changes to the household team within the agreed structure.
  • Referred up: anything outside the budget, capital works, new long-term contracts, changes to the structure of the team, and anything touching the family's privacy or security in a new way.

A private bank's governance paper lists a fair and transparent process for making decisions among the foundational considerations for a wealthy family.1 For the estate, that means everyone can see which group a decision falls into before it is made, not after. When I am taking over an established estate, this list is one of the first things I agree, because the existing habits are rarely written down.

Who approves spend: budget, thresholds and capital works

My preference is for one annual budget, approved once by the family or the family office, with three tiers of authority below it:

  • spending the estate manager approves alone, within the budget;
  • spending the estate manager approves but reports promptly, above a level agreed in advance;
  • spending that needs the family office's or the family's approval before it is committed.

Capital works sit in the last tier, with their own budget and their own sign-off. The actual levels depend on the household and are agreed at the start; I do not think there is a right number that suits every family. What matters is that the family is asked only what it wants to be asked. The estate as a commitment explains why the budget only makes sense once the owner's wishes are known.

Reporting cadence: weekly, monthly, annual

The rhythm I use is:

  • Weekly: a short note on what happened, what is coming, and anything that needs a decision.
  • Monthly: spend against budget, with the reasons for any variance, plus works in progress and supplier issues.
  • Annually: the next year's budget, a capital works plan, and a frank account of the condition of each property.

Where the family has several homes, I report them together, against one budget across several residences, so the family office sees the whole picture rather than separate accounts. Urgent matters are never held for the next report.

Suppliers, contracts and the family office's own advisers

In my experience, the family office usually has its own lawyers, insurers, accountants and sometimes its own property advisers. In my practice, the estate brings these advisers in early on anything they will later have to sign off, from a major contract to a new insurance requirement. Supplier selection and day-to-day management stay with the estate, which knows how the house actually runs.

In my view, confidentiality runs both ways. The family office should know what it needs to approve, pay for and insure, and no more of the family's private life than that. I cover this in estate security.

When the family office and the household disagree

Sometimes the family wants something the office is reluctant to fund, or the office wants a saving the family will feel. In my view the estate manager's job is to set out the options plainly for both, with the cost and the effect on the household, and then carry out the decision once it is made. What does not work is the estate manager taking sides, or two approval lines quietly pulling against each other.

Questions family offices ask

Should the estate manager report to the principal or the family office?
Either can work. Agency guides show both.23 In my experience what matters is that there is one line, and that the principal and the office both know who approves what.
Who approves spending on the estate?
In my practice, the family or the family office approves the annual budget and anything above agreed limits; the estate manager approves spending within the budget and answers for it.
How often should an estate manager report to the family office?
I report weekly in brief, monthly against budget and annually on the plan for the year ahead, with anything urgent raised straight away.
Can the family office outsource estate management and still keep oversight?
It can outsource the work, but not the responsibility. A private bank's governance paper notes that outsourcing does not delegate the family office's responsibility to oversee, coordinate and periodically reassess how and with whom the services are provided.1

Sources

  1. Citi Private Bank, Organisational design, leadership and governance insights for family offices (private bank governance paper). https://www.privatebank.citibank.com/ivc/docs/OrgDesign_Leadership_GovInsights_FamilyOffices.pdf (fetched 29 Oct 2026).
  2. My Household Managed, "What is an estate manager?" (agency guide). https://myhouseholdmanaged.com/blog/what-is-an-estate-manager (fetched 29 Oct 2026).
  3. Heritage Staffing, Multi-jurisdictional household structure (agency guide). https://heritage-staffing.ch/multi-jurisdictional-household-structure/ (fetched 29 Oct 2026).
  4. The Family Office Association (TFOA), "Creating a Single Family Office". https://tfoa.info/publication/creating-a-single-family-office/ (fetched 29 Oct 2026, HTTP 200).