One family, four countries, three houses | The Modern Family

Welcome to modern family life.

The glamorous version is called global mobility. It looks wonderful in a property brochure: London for work, somewhere in the mountains for the winter, somewhere warm for the summer, children studying abroad, grandparents somewhere else entirely.

The practical version is remembering which house has the school uniform, where the dog is going, who's meeting the flight, whether the fridge is stocked, and which country everybody is actually sleeping in on Thursday.

We find the practical version much more interesting.

More families are living like this

It isn't just a handful of people. Citi's 2026 Global Family Office Report, which surveyed 351 family offices across 41 countries, found that 38% expect their families to become more global over the next five years. More homes, more passports, more people in more places.

And here's the thing nobody puts in the brochure: the more international a life becomes, the more it depends on someone holding it all together. Owning several homes isn't the hard bit. Making one life work across all of them is.

We ran a house move for one family while they were in Singapore. We sort visas for people who travel constantly, and make sure their phones actually work in every country they land in. None of it is glamorous. All of it is what makes the glamorous version possible.

Christmas is when it all lands at once

For most of the year, a global family runs in parallel. Different people, different places, different diaries. Then December arrives and everyone tries to end up in the same place at the same time. The house that's been empty since August needs to be warm. The teenager is flying in from university. The grandparents need help with the journey. And every passport in the family is suddenly being looked at by a border officer.

So here's what we'd sort now, while there's still time.

The passports

Most people check when their passport expires. Far fewer check when it was issued. For Europe, a passport must have been issued less than ten years before you arrive, and it can't expire until at least three months after you leave. A passport that's still in date can be turned away.

Check everyone's, especially the children's, which only last five years. If one needs renewing, Fast Track gets you a new passport a week after your appointment, and the one-day service is for adult renewals only. Leave it much past mid-November and appointments get hard to find.

The new borders

This is the first Christmas with the EU's Entry/Exit System fully running. Your first time through, you'll give fingerprints and a photo at the border. It's free and lasts three years, and children aged eleven and under just have a photo. Allow a bit more time than you used to.

ETIAS, the EU's new travel permit, still hasn't launched and has no confirmed date. There's nothing to apply for yet, and there are dozens of fake websites happy to take your money for it.

If you have a house in Europe, keep an eye on the 90-day rule. You can spend up to 90 days in any 180 in the Schengen area, and those autumn weekends at the chalet all count.

Heading to the US? Check your ESTA is still valid, because new ones now need a selfie photograph. And if family, guests or staff are coming to you in the UK from abroad, many visitors now need a UK Electronic Travel Authorisation before they fly.

The children

If one parent is taking the children ahead while the other follows later, carry a short letter of permission from the other parent with their contact details and the trip dates, plus the children's birth certificates. Add a marriage or divorce certificate if your surname is different from theirs. The same goes if grandparents or a nanny are travelling with them.

The houses

This is the bit that gets forgotten. Every house should have its own arrival list: heating on, beds made, fridge stocked, dog food in, flowers if they matter, and someone who knows where the spare key is. Write it once, keep it with the property, and you never have to explain the house again.

Then check the boring things. Does the phone work there? Does the insurance cover everyone, the region and the skiing? Is anyone's visa application going to leave their passport sitting in a consulate the week they need to fly?

Our view

The more places a family lives, the less any single person can hold it all in their head. That isn't a failing. It's simply what happens when a life gets bigger.

What a global family needs isn't more help in each place. It's one person who can see across all of them: the diaries, the houses, the passports and the people. That's how we plan travel and look after homes for the families we work with, wherever they happen to be sleeping on Thursday.

Because the point of Christmas in the mountains is to actually be there: on the slope, at the table, watching the youngest finally get the hang of it. Not standing at a border wondering whose passport was issued in 2016.

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We run the visa process and work alongside your immigration adviser where you have one. We don't give immigration advice. Rules correct as of October 2026. Always check GOV.UK travel advice before you go.