Family offices apply institutional discipline to the investments and almost none to the house. A 2026 survey of more than one hundred estate managers and family office leaders found that the largest barrier to better residential security is not cost but family resistance. This note sets out why the gap is one of governance rather than equipment, and how a family office can close it without turning the home into an institution.
A well run family office is a governed organisation. Capital is allocated against a written policy, counterparties are vetted, risk is measured and reported, and a decision that would not survive the investment committee does not get made. The same family may own a residence worth more than most of the positions in the portfolio, occupied by the people the whole structure exists to protect, and run it on habit, goodwill and an alarm installed by whoever was available at the time.
We see this pattern often enough to regard it as the norm rather than the exception. The residence is treated as a private matter, outside the remit of the office, and its security is delegated to a house manager, a contractor or nobody in particular. The result is not usually negligence. It is the absence of anyone with the standing to ask the questions that the family office asks of everything else it touches.
Why does the residence sit outside the family office’s governance?
Partly because of how family offices grow. Most begin as an investment or administrative function and acquire the household by accretion, one request at a time, without ever being given formal responsibility for it. Partly because the home is emotionally different. The principal will accept a compliance regime over a fund because it is impersonal; a regime over the front door feels like a comment on how the family lives. And partly because the two worlds use different people. The chief operating officer of the office and the house manager of the residence may never have sat in the same meeting, and neither is certain that security at the property belongs to them.
The consequence is that the residence is the one significant asset with no owner of its risk. Nobody is accountable for the standard, so nobody is measuring against one. That is a governance failure before it is a security failure, and it is worth being precise about, because the remedies for the two are different.
What does the survey actually tell us?
In June 2026 Presage Global and Nines published The State of Family Office Estate Security, drawing on responses from more than one hundred estate managers, family office executives, chiefs of staff and residential security professionals. Three findings stand out. Family resistance was named the number one barrier to improving security by 49 per cent of respondents, well ahead of cost at 28 per cent. Households running a fragmented security arrangement reported a financial loss incident rate of 62 per cent, against 25 per cent for those with an integrated team. And while 65 per cent named AI enabled attacks as a top emerging concern, only 7 per cent provided formal cybersecurity training to family members, and 62 per cent received no annual security training at all.
The authors’ own reading is that the primary obstacle to effective estate security does not appear to be budget, technology or the threat landscape. We agree, and we would put it more plainly. The families in that survey are not short of money or of vendors. They are short of a decision, taken once and held to, that the residence is governed.
Why is family resistance the real barrier?
Resistance is rarely a refusal to be safe. In our experience it is a reaction to security that has been proposed badly: a list of devices and rules presented without an assessment of what the family actually faces, by a supplier with an interest in the answer, in a way that treats the household as a site rather than a home. A principal who declines that is exercising good judgement, not obstruction.
Resistance falls away when three things are true. The family understands the specific exposure, in terms of who might study the residence and what they would find, rather than in generalities about crime. The measures proposed are proportionate to that picture and explained as a whole rather than as an accumulating list. And the people carrying the responsibility are of a calibre the family is content to have around its children and its staff. Where those conditions are met, we find that the family becomes the strongest advocate for the posture, because it is theirs.
What does governance of the residence look like in practice?
It looks much like governance of anything else the office is responsible for, applied with tact. There is a named owner of residential risk inside the office, with authority to commission an assessment and to hold suppliers to its findings. There is a written standard for the property, covering access, keyholding, alarm and camera coverage, staff vetting, contractor control and what happens when something goes wrong, agreed with the principal and reviewed on a cycle rather than after an incident. There is a single point of accountability for delivery, so that the alarm company, the keyholder, the house manager and any protective staff are answering to one standard rather than to their own.
Two habits do most of the work. The first is a periodic assessment of how the residence looks to someone studying it, which converts the family’s exposure from a feeling into a set of facts that can be acted on and revisited. The second is discipline around people: background checks that are refreshed rather than filed once, induction for new household staff that includes security, and a clear rule about who may grant access to the property and how that permission is withdrawn. The survey found that only about one in four households refresh background checks after the initial hire. That is the kind of gap a governed residence closes as a matter of routine.
Where does fragmentation cost the family?
The gap between a 62 per cent and a 25 per cent incident rate is the clearest number in the survey, and it is not surprising. A fragmented arrangement is one in which the alarm receiving centre, the keyholding contractor, the household staff and any security presence each hold a piece of the picture and nobody holds all of it. When a sensor triggers at three in the morning, the question is not whether equipment exists but whether the people who respond know the property, know each other and know what the family expects of them. Fragmentation answers no to all three.
An integrated arrangement is not necessarily a larger one. It is one in which the pieces are designed together, directed by one accountable party and rehearsed against the scenarios that matter for that residence. For many London households that is a well designed system with fast and competent keyholding under a single standard. For some it is a discreet residential team. The proportionate answer comes from the assessment, not from the catalogue.
How should a family office begin?
Begin by deciding that the residence is within scope, and record who owns it. Commission an independent assessment of the property and the family’s exposure before commissioning anything else, so that whatever follows is a response to facts rather than to a sales visit. Bring the principal into that conversation early and in confidence, because a posture agreed with the family will hold and one imposed on it will not. Then set the standard, appoint the accountable party and put the review date in the diary. None of this requires the home to feel any different from the inside. The point of governance is that it is felt only when it is needed.
Frequently asked questions
Is this not simply the house manager’s job?
A good house manager is essential to a protected residence, but the role is operational rather than governing. Setting the standard, commissioning the assessment and holding suppliers to account are decisions that need the standing of the family office behind them. The house manager delivers within that framework rather than being left to create it.
Will a governed residence feel like living in an office?
It should not, and if it does the design is wrong. Most of what governance adds is invisible to the family: clarity about who owns what, people who have been properly vetted, and a rehearsed response. The visible measures are chosen to be proportionate and, where possible, to disappear into the way the household already runs.
How often should the residence be reassessed?
On a fixed cycle, typically annually, and whenever something material changes: a move, a change in the family’s profile or public exposure, new staff, building works, or an incident at the property or nearby. The survey is clear that assessment after an incident is common. The purpose of a cycle is to make it unnecessary.
A confidential conversation
If your family office would like a clear, independent view of how a residence is protected and governed, we are glad to help. Valorous Group works from 78 Pall Mall, London, and every conversation is handled in confidence.