STEP Journal: Chetcuti and Mifsud Parker on Malta’s Single-Family Office Model

Writing in STEP Journal, Issue 4 2026, Dr Jean-Philippe Chetcuti TEP and Dr Priscilla Mifsud-Parker TEP examine what distinguishes Malta’s approach to the modern single-family office.

Their central proposition is that Malta’s model is best understood not as one new family-office product, but as an integrated architecture assembled from established legal and regulatory regimes. Trust law provides the fiduciary foundation; corporate structures organise ownership and control; investment-services rules regulate the investment layer; and related tax, governance and mobility considerations are analysed alongside them.

This distinguishes the STEP contribution from our more detailed technical publication on Malta’s Single Family Office Framework. The existing publication explains the Maltese framework and its constituent components in depth. The STEP article instead develops the wider professional argument for viewing those components as one coordinated family-office system.

The article also places this structural evolution within the wider context of internationally dispersed family wealth. Where family members, operating businesses, investment portfolios and future beneficiaries are spread across jurisdictions, governance increasingly requires more than informal coordination. Succession, fiduciary accountability, investment oversight and regulatory credibility need to operate together.

“One of the distinguishing features of Malta’s approach is the deliberate layering of legal regimes.”
Dr Jean-Philippe Chetcuti TEP and Dr Priscilla Mifsud-Parker TEP
Originally published in STEP Journal, Issue 4 2026

The STEP analysis describes a Maltese single-family office as a structure that can be assembled in several interconnected stages rather than through one prescribed entity.

A Private Trust Company (PTC) may provide the fiduciary starting point. The PTC can act as trustee of one or more family trusts, allowing trusteeship and family governance to be organised within a dedicated structure while remaining subject to the fiduciary requirements of the Trusts and Trustees Act.

The trust layer may then serve different family purposes. Depending on the family’s objectives, separate trusts may address long-term wealth preservation, ownership of a family business, philanthropy or the distribution of wealth between generations. The key legal distinction is between beneficial entitlement and operational control.

Below the trust, a holding company can provide the corporate layer through which investment and operating entities are owned. The structure considered in the STEP article then introduces a fund-management function and a Notified Professional Investor Fund as the investment platform.

The NPIF is significant because it can allow private family capital to be managed within a recognised investment-services framework without automatically requiring the same regulatory model applicable to a conventional externally marketed investment fund. The Malta Financial Services Authority’s guidance on family offices explains the circumstances in which NPIFs may form part of a family-office vehicle and the conditions attaching to exempt management arrangements.

This produces a structure in which:

• the trust can represent the family’s long-term ownership and succession framework;
• the PTC can provide fiduciary oversight;
• the holding company can centralise corporate ownership;
• the fund can organise investment participation and portfolio management; and
• professional service providers can support administration, compliance, custody and regulatory requirements.

The significance of the model lies less in any individual component than in how the components interact.

One consequence of this integrated structure is that family-office decisions cannot be analysed exclusively at fund or corporate level.

Trustee fiduciary duties continue to apply where investment decisions are implemented through companies or funds. Article 21 of Malta’s Trusts and Trustees Act establishes core duties applicable to trustees, while article 37 gives statutory effect to the separation of trust property from the trustee’s personal estate.

This has important governance implications. Investment powers, board appointments, reserved matters and family participation should be designed consistently with the terms and purposes of the underlying trust.

The model may also allow a distinction between control and economic entitlement. Governance rights can be organised through founder or controlling interests while economic participation is represented through separate interests or share classes. Properly structured, this can allow family members to participate in governance or investment committees without requiring direct division of the underlying family assets.

For succession planning, the potential benefit is significant. Instead of dividing operating businesses, investment portfolios or other assets each time wealth passes between generations, succession can occur through interests within the wider family-office architecture while investment management remains centralised.

The same flexibility creates legal risks if governance is inadequately documented. Particular attention may be required where family members serve simultaneously as PTC directors, beneficiaries, investment-committee members or directors of underlying companies. Conflicts, information rights, voting arrangements and fiduciary responsibilities should therefore be addressed expressly.

Families and their advisors must also look beyond Maltese law. Beneficiaries, settlors, shareholders and family members may be tax resident in different jurisdictions, while underlying assets may generate reporting, tax, succession or regulatory consequences elsewhere.

The STEP article therefore treats Malta as a potential coordination jurisdiction, not as a mechanism for displacing the legal obligations arising in every other country with which the family is connected.

This distinction is important. For internationally active families, effective family-office planning increasingly involves aligning governance, investment management, succession and cross-border compliance rather than seeking a single structure that purports to solve every issue.

For internationally mobile UHNW families, Malta planning often includes a review of legal residence, tax residence, long-term relocation, and citizenship eligibility. These questions should be assessed separately.

Chetcuti Cauchi’s publication on categorising residence and citizenship options in Malta explains Malta’s layered framework of residence and citizenship statuses, each carrying different levels of legal attachment, durability, and intergenerational value.

Families considering relocation may also review the firm’s Malta Residence guidance and the comparison of Malta Permanent Residence and Malta Citizenship by Merit, which distinguishes residence, permanent residence, special tax status, and citizenship considerations.

“International families increasingly seek meaningful alignment between personal mobility, governance stability, family continuity, and long-term strategic positioning. Malta’s relevance lies in the ability to support these objectives within a mature European legal framework.”
Dr. Jean-Philippe Chetcuti
Senior Partner, Chetcuti Cauchi Advocates

The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) is an international professional body for practitioners working across trusts, estates, succession, private wealth and related family-governance disciplines. STEP Journal provides technical and professional analysis for this international practitioner community.

Both authors have longstanding involvement with STEP. Dr Jean-Philippe Chetcuti has served as Chairman of the STEP Malta Branch and contributes professional commentary on private-client, mobility and wealth-planning issues.

Dr Priscilla Mifsud-Parker has also served as Chairperson of STEP Malta and is a member of the branch’s technical sub-committee. Her professional work spans trusts, estate planning, family offices, investment structures and private wealth governance.

Their co-authorship of The Maltese model brings together these complementary perspectives: Jean-Philippe’s work at the intersection of globally mobile private wealth, international tax and family-office structuring, and Priscilla’s focus on fiduciary structures, trusts, funds and family governance.

Publication in STEP Journal places the analysis before an international practitioner audience dealing directly with the same cross-border trust, succession and family-office questions considered in the article.

Dr Jean-Philippe Chetcuti, Senior Partner – Citizenship, Residency, Private Client Tax, advises internationally active private clients and family offices on family-office structuring, international tax, trusts, estate planning and cross-border mobility. He is a TEP and former Chairman of the STEP Malta Branch, and has contributed regularly to STEP and other professional publications. His private-client work focuses particularly on the interaction between family governance, international mobility, tax residence and long-term jurisdictional planning.

Dr Priscilla Mifsud-Parker, Senior Partner – Tax, Family Office, Immigration, heads the firm’s Families & Wealth and Corporate, Trusts & Fintech practices. She specialises in trusts, estate planning, family-office structures, investment funds, asset holding and the preservation and governance of internationally held family wealth. She is a TEP, former Chairperson of STEP Malta and a member of its technical sub-committee, with particular experience in integrating fiduciary, corporate and regulated investment structures.

Our Malta Family Office lawyers and advisors advise internationally active families, family businesses and their professional advisors on the legal architecture and operation of Malta-based family offices.

Our work may include the design and coordination of:

• family trusts and succession structures;
• Private Trust Companies;
• family holding companies and asset-holding structures;
• family-office governance frameworks;
• NPIF and regulated investment components;
• trustee, board and investment-committee arrangements;
• intergenerational ownership and governance planning;
• cross-border structuring and reporting considerations; and
• coordination with tax, residence and other professional advisors in the jurisdictions relevant to the family.

The appropriate architecture depends on the family’s objectives, asset base, existing structures, jurisdictions of residence, governance requirements and succession priorities. A Maltese family-office structure should therefore be designed around the family’s overall legal and governance position rather than around any single Maltese vehicle.