He 41% of families with relevant assets will face a generational transition in the next decade, and many of them still do not have a structured plan to manage it, according to the report Family Office Insights 2024 from Deloitte. Multigenerational planning is not just about distributing assets: it is about designing, years in advance, how family assets change hands without losing value or cohesion. The sooner it is addressed, the more real options remain on the table.
What is multigenerational estate planning?
Multigenerational planning is the process through which a family organizes, with a long-term vision, how its assets are preserved, invested and transmitted through successive generations. It differs from the succession planning classic —focused on the distribution of assets after a death— in that it addresses the estate as a living project: investment decisions, taxation, family governance and preparation of heirs that are reviewed and adjusted over decades, not only at the time of inheritance.
This approach makes special sense when wealth is no longer just money in an account, but a combination of financial assets, real estate, business interests, and often a family business. The more pieces come into play, the more necessary a coordinated strategy that prevents each generation from starting from scratch.
Why most family assets do not reach the third generation intact
It is a pattern that is repeated in different international studies: a good part of the family wealth is diluted between the second and third generations, almost never due to a specific bad investment, but rather due to lack of preparation of heirs and by decisions that are made late or in isolation. At Norz Patrimonia we closely follow the data from Deloitte’s Family Office Insights 2024 report, which places generational succession among the main challenges in the sector: almost a third of families consider that their heirs are not yet prepared to assume leadership of the estate.
The problem is rarely a lack of resources. It is the absence of a structure that connects three things that are almost always managed separately: the investment strategythe taxation applicable to each transmission and the governance that decides who decides what within the family.
The pillars of solid multigenerational planning
A well-constructed planning is not based on a single tool, but on several pillars that work in a coordinated manner. Each one resolves a different risk, and omitting one is usually the reason why the plan fails in practice.
Asset and tax structure
The basis of any multigenerational plan is the legal and tax structure through which the patrimony is organized: patrimonial companies, family holdings, living donations or succession agreements, among other figures. It is worth clarifying a nuance that many general articles overlook: the trusts or Anglo-Saxon trusts, so cited in international literature, have a very limited application in Spanish law, which is why families residing in Spain usually rely on figures specific to our system, with tax treatment that also varies depending on the autonomous community.
Choosing the correct structure requires comparing alternatives with an overall financial vision, not just a legal one. This is where individual wealth management work connects directly to tax and estate planning.
Governance and family protocol
Family governance is probably the least understood pillar. It consists of establishing in writing—normally in a family protocol— who participates in property decisions, with what criteria and under what mechanisms disagreements are resolved. From our experience working with family estates at Norz Patrimonia, families who document these rules before a conflict arises reach agreements much more quickly than those who try to improvise them in the middle of succession.
A reasonable family protocol does not need to cover every possible scenario; needs to respond clearly to those most likely to generate tension: access to liquidity, entry of new members through marriage, or sale of assets that the family considers part of the legacy.
Financial education of the next generations
No plan survives if those who inherit it do not know how to manage it. The intergenerational financial education —training children and grandchildren in investment, risk and tax concepts before they receive the assets— is, according to the family offices consulted by Deloitte, one of the priorities that has grown the most in recent years, although few families still address it in a structured way.
- Include heirs in informational meetings about the family portfolio before they have to decide on it.
- Explain the reason for each tax or legal structure, not just how it works.
- Define a progressive role: observer, participant, decision-maker.
These practices do not replace formal training, but they significantly reduce the risk of impulsive decisions when the generational change finally occurs.
Coordination between banking, taxation and law
The fourth pillar is actually the one that supports the other three: someone has to coordinate the bank, the tax advisor and the lawyer so that they work on the same plan and not on partial visions. It is common for a family to receive investment recommendations from their bank, tax advice from their agency and legal advice from their notary or lawyer, without any of the three having the complete photograph. A financial planning plan that integrates these three visions from the beginning avoids duplication and, above all, decisions that contradict each other.
A framework for generations: what changes at each stage
Multigenerational planning does not ask for the same thing at all times. The focus changes depending on whether the family is creating wealth, consolidating it or transmitting it, and confusing these stages is a frequent cause of untimely decisions.
| Stage | Main focus | Risk if ignored |
|---|---|---|
| First generation (creation) | Diversification and protection of generated capital | Excessive concentration on a single asset or business |
| Second generation (consolidation) | Tax structure, governance and first family agreements | Absence of protocol before the first relief |
| Third generation (transmission) | Education of heirs and distribution already ordered | Dilution of assets due to lack of preparation |
This framework is not rigid: a family can be in the second generation financially but in the first from a governance point of view, if a protocol has never existed before. The important thing is to identify what stage each dimension of the estate is in, not just how many years the family has been managing it.
When to start planning: concrete signs
There is no age or exact amount from which it is “time” to plan. There are signs that, in practice, indicate that postponing the decision is beginning to have a real cost.
- Sale of a family business or influx of relevant liquidity that changes the nature of the assets.
- Consolidation of financial and non-financial assets under different ownerships without a joint vision.
- Incorporation of the next generation into adult life, with studies, employment or training of their own family.
- Explicit desire to maintain family unity and purpose beyond a single generation.
When any of these signs appear, waiting rarely works in the family’s favor: every year without structure is a year in which decisions are made reactively rather than planned.
Common mistakes that compromise the family legacy
Beyond what needs to be done, it is worth pointing out the errors that, on a recurring basis, end up compromising family assets in the long term.
The most common is to treat the living donation as if it were always more advantageous than inheritance, without checking it case by case: depending on the value of the assets, the relationship and the autonomous community of residence, it may be more burdensome than waiting for the succession. Another common mistake is to delegate all planning to a single professional profile—normally the lawyer or tax manager—without there being a financial vision that assesses the real impact on the investment portfolio and the liquidity available to each heir.
The third mistake, quieter but just as costly, is not communicating the plan to those who will inherit it. A perfect family protocol that no one else knows about generates the same surprise and uncertainty as having no plan at all.
The role of a regulated financial advisor in multigenerational planning
Multigenerational planning combines financial, fiscal, legal and family decisions, and rarely does a single professional figure cover all four with the same solvency. The value of a regulated financial advisor —in the case of Norz Patrimonia, a Financial Advisory Company (EAF) supervised by the National Securities Market Commission— is precisely in occupying that place of coordination: analyzing the portfolio with profitability and risk criteria, and at the same time talking with the family’s tax and legal advisors so that investment decisions and succession decisions move in the same direction.
Our team of financial advisors has more than 30 years of average experience in the markets, a trajectory that we also apply to the design of Family Office structures tailored to each family, from governance to the training of heirs. It does not replace the notary or the tax advisor: it stands alongside them, with the investment portfolio as the starting point of any well-constructed succession plan.
Planning the estate for several generations is not a task that can be resolved in a single meeting, but it is one that should be started early, while all decisions remain an option and not an urgency. If your family is considering taking that step, at Norz Patrimonia you can request an initial consultation with our team to review, without obligation, where your assets are and what structure best suits them.