Besides providing business and investment side advice and services, family offices can provide a benefit that is almost impossible to quantify such as fostering family harmony by creating better communicationamong relatives. The communication is critical with the wealthy families because their wealth is interconnected. Studies of numerous family wealth transfers show that family wealth often peters out by the third generation, hence the communication between generations, family education, family office governance including conflict resolution can help to preserve the family wealth and ensure its smooth transfer to the next generation. 

The above in place can prevent, for example, a situation when the second generation daughter took €200,000 out of the family business, without permission and without anyone knowing for more than a year. Good family governance steps such as checks on monthly expenditures, or dual approval for check writing and wire transfers could have caught this early on.