Indian family offices are professionalising. Diligence is the gap EY names.

The pool is real and poorly counted

The EY and Julius Baer playbook says the number of Indian family offices grew from about 45 in 2018 to nearly 300 by 2024 to 2025, most of them single-family offices. In the same sentence it says comprehensive data on the number is not available. (1) Treat the count as an estimate.

The same report cites one estimate that mid-sized and large family offices managed about Rs 70,000 crore in 2024, growing at 14% a year to about 1.5 times that in three years. (1, 3) It also cites more than 19,000 ultra-high-net-worth individuals, defined as holding above US$30 million, rising to more than 25,000 by 2031 (Knight Frank Wealth Report 2026, as cited). (1) India has no dedicated regulatory regime for family offices. They operate under existing securities, trust and company law. (1)

Where the large cheques go

In EY's table of private equity and venture capital investment by sector, 2023 to Q1 2026, real estate drew US$29.7 billion across 388 deals. The whole table is US$183.5 billion across 4,069 deals. (2) Real estate is therefore about 16% of the value and about 9.5% of the deal count. The average real estate deal was about US$76 million against about US$45 million overall, 1.7 times larger (our arithmetic).

The playbook also says real estate, in India and in global centres, "continues to be key" for family-office investors. (1) It does not give a real estate allocation for Indian family offices, and we do not quote one.

What EY says goes wrong

The playbook is candid about the weak points, and three of them sit directly on the path of an off-market real asset deal. (1)

• Relationship-led decisions. Investments are often made on familiarity, not merit or process, which leads to weak documentation, due diligence and accountability.
• Fragmented information. Custodian statements, spreadsheets, emails and "legal and property records" sit in separate places, with no single source of truth.
• Thin in-house specialisation. Many family offices may lack the capability to evaluate each asset class, and top-tier private deals are competitive and relationship-driven.

EY's remedy is process: a defined due diligence framework covering financial, legal, tax and commercial checks; documented approval workflows and delegation of authority; standard evaluation criteria such as risk and return, strategic fit, liquidity and concentration limits; and two-key controls on fund disbursement. (1)

What a mandate has to look like to pass that process (our view)

If an investment committee works the way EY describes, a mandate that reaches it should already carry the file the committee would otherwise have to build:

• Documented authority for the seller to act.
• A traced title chain, not a statement of ownership.
• Entitlement and statutory dues checked against records.
• A score with its sources and confidence stated.
• A named person who approved the introduction.

That is the standard AIS applies before it shows an asset to capital.

A caution about allocation figures

The playbook gives two figures that point different ways. In one place it says 40% to 45% of allocations at many family offices now go to alternatives such as private equity, venture capital, private credit, AIFs, REITs and InvITs. In another it says about 12% of Indian family offices had a 20% to 30% alternatives allocation in 2024, and that Indian family offices sit at the low end of a global average of 40% to 45%. (1, 3, 4) We do not know how to reconcile them and have not used either as a statement about Indian family offices.

Limits of this note

This note summarises a published playbook and our own arithmetic on its table. It is not investment advice.