10 Strategic Wealth Mistakes Global Families Make And How to Avoid Them

01.07.2025

Original Publication

GlobalWealthStrategy

CrossBorderPlanning

FamilyOfficeInsights

StrategicWealth

In today’s globalized world, wealth knows no borders, but financial systems still do.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur in Singapore, a family office principal in São Paulo, a business owner in Oslo, a UK resident navigating inheritance tax, or a private client with homes across Europe and Scandinavia, the complexity of managing significant wealth across jurisdictions is increasing.

At our Geneva-based firm, we help global families align their structures, strategy, and legacy planning often uncovering hidden risks that can quietly erode capital over time. We take a holistic approach, working closely with a trusted network of independent legal, tax, insurance, and structuring experts to ensure every aspect of your wealth is considered and coordinated.

Here are 10 of the most common and costly mistakes we see internationally mobile, affluent families make, and how you can avoid them.

1. Structuring Assets Without a Cross-Border Lens

Private banks, lawyers, and accountants often advise in silos, but wealth doesn’t live in one country anymore.

Avoid it by: Coordinating across legal, tax, and regulatory systems especially if you hold passports, residencies, or real estate in multiple countries.

2. Delaying Succession Planning Across Jurisdictions

Many families assume that a single estate plan will work seamlessly across borders, but inheritance laws vary significantly depending on where assets or heirs are located. Often, families wait too long to address these complexities, risking costly legal battles and loss of capital when unexpected events occur.

Avoid it by: Building a unified estate and succession strategy early that respects local laws while protecting global intent often involving trusts, foundations, or holding companies. The sooner you act, the more options and flexibility you retain.

3. Relying Too Heavily on Local Advisors

Even the most trusted advisors can have blind spots when it comes to global complexity.

Avoid it by: Assembling a cross-functional advisory team or working with a firm that coordinates international tax, legal, and investment strategy under one roof.

4. Allowing Capital to Sit in Suboptimal Structures

Outdated holding companies, underused trusts, or legacy accounts can lead to exposure, inefficiency, or unnecessary reporting risk.

Avoid it by: Regularly auditing and modernizing your legal and asset structures in line with current regulation, tax treaties, and personal objectives.

5. Underestimating CRS, FATCA & Transparency Regimes

Automatic exchange of financial information is now global. Privacy requires strategy not secrecy.

Avoid it by: Ensuring every structure is compliant but intentionally designed. Work with advisors who understand both the legal and reputational risks.

6. Reacting to Life Events Without Planning First

Residency changes, business exits, divorces, and cross-border marriages, all common among global families can have tax and legal consequences that last decades.

Avoid it by: Stress-testing your plan well before a move or liquidity event. Timing and structure often matter more than the event itself.

7. Thinking in Terms of Performance, Not Preservation

At a certain level of wealth, protecting capital and enabling freedom becomes more important than “beating the market.”

Avoid it by: Emphasizing governance, access, and tax-aware returns over short-term alpha especially when managing intergenerational wealth.

8. Failing to Prepare the Next Generation

Globally mobile heirs often face fragmented education, mismatched values, and complex family dynamics including new in-laws across different jurisdictions. These challenges can create risks to long-term wealth continuity that a traditional will alone cannot address.

Avoid it by: Building shared understanding, clear roles, and aligned values into your family planning. Use flexible, cross-border structures like trusts or family offices to manage evolving relationships and legal differences. Governance, education, and coordinated strategy are essential to preserve your legacy across generations and geographies.

9. Overlooking Currency, Jurisdiction & Risk Alignment

Where you hold assets matters as much as what they are. Too often, portfolios and property holdings are misaligned with legal domicile and future plans.

Avoid it by: Balancing currency, political, and legal risk across both investments and custody arrangements.

10. Lacking a Single Point of Coordination

When family wealth spans banks, trusts, properties, businesses, and advisors, complexity compounds.

Avoid it by: Appointing a lead advisor or boutique firm that can serve as your strategic hub, quietly coordinating across your family’s financial life.

Next Steps

The complexity of wealth increases with scale and geography. But with the right structures, strategy, and trusted partners, your capital can serve not just your lifetime but your legacy.

Curious whether your current structure stands up to cross-border complexity?

We offer discreet, independent second opinions for globally connected families.

Contact us for a confidential conversation from our Geneva office.