Family Offices
A family office introduces the matter when the client's structure will not support the account. The trust, the holding companies, and the title have to be one arrangement: KYC that matches the deed, and documents the custodian can administer after the account opens. We design or repair that U.S. architecture. The office keeps the relationship with the family. The broader practice is Private Wealth.
The office brings the file so the relationship can run. A trust the custodian will not onboard, a company whose U.S. classification was never elected, and title that does not match the trust or the entities are the same problem: the account cannot open, and cannot stay open, until the file and the documents agree.
We read the foreign trust together with the companies it owns. Form 8832 classification, CFC and PFIC exposure if a U.S. person is in the family, and the name on the U.S. real estate or brokerage account have to be one structure. See The Form 8832 election, Foreign Trusts, and Private Wealth.
Custodians ask who controls substantial decisions, who the beneficiaries are, and whether a letter of wishes is being treated as an instruction. We align the deed, the trustee resolutions, and the KYC narrative so title, beneficial ownership, and the trust describe one structure the institution can open and maintain. If the trust should migrate or decant toward a U.S. trustee, that is a legal project with a tax model attached. See Domestication and migration.
Protectors, reserved powers, and successor trustees are how a multi-generational trust is run. The same clauses decide grantor status under section 672(f) and whether U.S.-situs assets stay in the estate. See Protectors and reserved powers and When the foreign grantor dies.
The office often sees the U.S. person first: a child in Miami, a spouse who takes a green card, a distribution that has to be explained to a U.S. preparer. We review the trust before that person is a U.S. taxpayer when the calendar allows, and we remediate when it does not. See When a family member becomes a U.S. person and planificación antes de que un hijo sea US person.
The family office remains the family's adviser. We coordinate with the office on the account the institution is being asked to open, with tax counsel, and with offshore counsel. Portfolio management stays with the office. Advisers who want the engagement described from their side of the table should start at Counsel for wealth advisers.
Where the office also makes direct private equity investments — co-investments, SPVs, subscription documents — that work sits with the same firm, because we are securities lawyers as well as private-wealth counsel. It is a separate scope from the trust. The trust page does not become a fund pitch.
A one-page map is enough: where the settlor lives, where the trustee sits, which companies the trust owns, whether any beneficiary is a U.S. person, which assets are U.S. real estate or stock of U.S. corporations, and where the account is blocked — KYC, title, or a document the custodian will not accept. Send the deed after we clear conflicts. The question on the first call is whether the documents describe a structure the office and the bank can administer, including for the next generation.
Write as the office. Tell us how the stack is arranged and whether you want the family on the first call. No commitment required.