How to choose a family office in Hong Kong: ten questions to ask before you sign

Ten questions worth asking any family office in Hong Kong, with a note on why each one matters and what a considered answer tends to sound like.

Who will be accountable for the whole picture, and what is their name?

Most families already have competent advisers. What they usually lack is one person accountable for the questions that fall between those advisers' mandates, which is where structures drift out of line with intentions. A good answer names an individual, describes what that person is responsible for, says who covers when they are away, and does not retreat into the name of the firm.

How will you work with our existing bank, lawyer and accountant?

A family office that requires you to replace your professionals is solving its own convenience, not your problem. A good answer describes a scoping process, the professionals being engaged to act for the family directly, and the coordinating firm managing the work alongside them. Ask specifically what happens to advisers the family has used for twenty years: the answer should be that they stay, and that someone finally joins up what they each hold.

How do you handle conflicts of interest, and how would we know if one arose?

You are asking because the incentive structure behind advice is rarely visible from the outside, and the differences between models matter more than any assurance given verbally. A good answer explains how the firm is paid and by whom, says plainly whether any third party pays it anything in connection with your affairs, and describes what gets disclosed to you and when. Vague reassurance is itself information; ask for the policy in writing and read it.

How is succession and next-generation work structured?

Succession is where coordination is tested, and the technical instruments are the easier half. A good answer separates the documents, which the lawyers and trustees draft, from the slower work of preparing the people who will inherit them, and describes how the second half actually happens: who meets the next generation, how often, and what real responsibility they are given along the way. If the answer is only about trusts and wills, half the work is missing.

Can we see the fee structure in writing before anything begins?

Fees that are explained verbally have a way of becoming complicated later, particularly across multi-stage work. Ask for the structure in writing before each stage begins, including what is covered, what is billed separately, what the third-party professionals will charge and whether those charges pass through unchanged. A good answer produces the document without friction and can explain, in one sentence, what you are paying for.

What happens when our advisers disagree with each other?

They will. A lawyer's reading of a shareholders' agreement and an accountant's view of the same arrangement can point in different directions, and left alone, disagreement between advisers usually resolves as inaction. A good answer describes a process: the disagreement surfaced to the family rather than quietly buried, the positions set out in plain language, the decision taken by the family and then recorded.

How do you document decisions, and what do we receive?

Families rarely lose money because a decision was wrong; they lose time and clarity because nobody can reconstruct why the decision was made. A good answer describes a map of what exists, updated as things change, and a record of each decision with the reasoning behind it, in a form the next generation could read without the founder present. Ask to see the format, redacted, rather than hearing it described.

How often will we meet, and what triggers a meeting in between?

An annual review is not enough for a family whose circumstances change, and a schedule of meetings with nothing in them is worse than none. A good answer gives a rhythm, typically a substantive review at a set interval, and a named list of events that prompt a meeting regardless of the calendar: a property purchase, a birth or marriage, a change in an operating business, a move to another jurisdiction, a change in law affecting a structure.

How do you handle families with members in several jurisdictions?

Hong Kong families are frequently spread across places, and the difficulty is rarely finding a competent adviser in each one. The difficulty is that three advisers in three jurisdictions can each assume another is responsible for the same question. A good answer describes how the firm works with professionals in other jurisdictions, who holds the consolidated view, and how advice in one place is checked against arrangements in another before anything is signed.

What will you not do?

A firm that claims to do everything has either not thought about its boundaries or is not telling you about them. A good answer is specific and slightly uncomfortable: the work it coordinates rather than performs, the situations where it sends the family elsewhere, the kinds of family it is not suited to. A coordinating firm should be able to say plainly that it coordinates the specialists a family needs rather than replacing them, which is a boundary you can hold a firm to.

How to use the answers

Ask all ten in one conversation and pay attention to the shape of the replies rather than their content. Firms that have done this work before answer the awkward questions first and in detail, because they have been asked them. Firms that have not tend to answer the easy ones at length. Then ask for the important parts in writing: the named individual, the fee structure, the conflicts policy, and what you receive at the end of each stage. A family office relationship is a long one, and everything that is clear at the start tends to stay clear.

Frequently asked questions

What should I ask a family office in Hong Kong before signing?

Ask who is personally accountable, how the firm works with your existing bank, lawyer and accountant, how it handles conflicts of interest, how succession and next-generation work is structured, and for the fee structure in writing. Then ask what the firm will not do. The answers to the last two tend to be the most revealing.

How is a family office paid, and by whom?

Ask how the firm is paid, by whom, and whether any third party pays it anything connected to your affairs, then ask for the answer in writing. Independence is a matter of the arrangements a firm can document, not a matter of assurance.

Do we have to change our existing advisers?

Usually not. A coordinating firm normally works alongside the professionals a family already uses, with those professionals continuing to act for the family directly. What changes is that someone becomes accountable for how their work fits together.

Sources

No external statistics are cited on this page.

This page is provided for general information only. It does not constitute legal, tax, accounting or investment advice, and should not be relied upon as such. Families should seek advice from appropriately qualified professionals on their specific circumstances.