Home Security for High Net Worth Individuals: Holidays

Home Security for High Net Worth Individuals: Holidays

Home security for high net worth individuals through the holiday season

Home security for high net worth individuals changes shape every year between early November and the middle of January, and many families notice the change too late. The house gets busier and emptier at the same time. More parcels arrive at the gate, more strangers come through the service entrance to hang lights, cater dinners and fix the pool heater before the guests land, and the family itself is away more often, sometimes for a long weekend, sometimes for three weeks over Christmas and New Year. In Southern California the clocks go back on Sunday, November 1, 2026, and from then until well into January it is dark before many people finish work. Each of those changes is small. Put together, they open the exact gaps that professional burglary crews look for.

A wave of break-ins at the homes of footballers and public figures around Seville this autumn shows how those gaps are found and used. On October 23, 2026, Diario de Sevilla reported that the Civil Guard is investigating an intrusion by several hooded men at the home of Real Betis striker Troy Parrott in the El Zaudín residential estate. According to the paper, the intruders were recorded by the video surveillance cameras entering and leaving the house on the afternoon of Saturday, October 17, while Betis were playing Barcelona and Parrott was on the pitch for part of the second half. Nobody was at home, and the report said nothing was taken. The Irish Times and RTÉ carried the story the same day, with RTÉ quoting a Civil Guard spokesman in Seville as saying the force is investigating a series of robberies in the Aljarafe area and that no arrests had yet been made.

The detail that matters more for holiday planning came in the same news cycle. ABC Sevilla reported on October 23 that the Civil Guard is examining a possible connection between the Aljarafe cases and has as a person under investigation a businessman from the town of Guillena, who allegedly provided sensitive information to thieves about the homes of well-known residents of the area. On September 13, ABC Sevilla had reported that agents had detained this unnamed businessman, citing sources close to the investigation, on suspicion of helping criminal groups launder money and of passing them information about target homes. And on September 5, El Debate reported that a confidential police document it had seen describes the same man as a trusted figure for the family of footballer Sergio Ramos who had been in charge of construction work at their estate, and attributes to him knowledge of a roof access hatch that had existed since the house was built. The 2023 burglary at that estate happened while Ramos was playing a Champions League match. These are allegations from an investigation that, according to El Debate, had not yet gone to court. The businessman has not been publicly named, he has not been convicted of anything, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

I am not writing to comment on any of these families. I am writing because the pattern the Spanish reporting describes is the pattern I plan against every November: a publicly known absence, a house that someone outside the family has seen from the inside, and a crew that arrives already knowing where to go. The holiday season multiplies all three. If you want the wider framework that this seasonal plan sits inside, start with our 2026 guide to high net worth security for UHNW families. This article is narrower. It is a working plan for the next ten weeks.

Estate gatehouse at dusk with holiday lights, parcels on a receiving table and a security officer seen from behind

Key takeaways

  • Home security for high net worth individuals has to be re-planned for November to January, because deliveries, seasonal workers, guests, travel and early darkness all peak together.
  • The Seville reporting points to the real risk: people who have been inside the house, such as builders, decorators and temporary staff, can carry its layout to the wrong people, knowingly or not.
  • A publicly known schedule, a sports fixture, a gala or a holiday flight, tells a crew when the house is likely to be empty or partly staffed.
  • Professional protection for this season means a written holiday calendar, controlled access for every vendor, a parcel process, a party plan and a residential team that is briefed for the dark hours.
  • Families, estate managers and family offices each own part of the plan, and the gaps usually appear where those parts meet.

What happened in Seville, and why it is a holiday story

It is worth separating what was reported from what was not. Diario de Sevilla described the Parrott intrusion as the latest in a series of cases in the Aljarafe, the area west of Seville where many players and public figures live. The same report said that on October 14, Betis winger Antony suffered a burglary at his home while he was playing a Champions League match against Porto, and that coach Manuel Pellegrini later said one of the player’s children was in the house when the thieves entered, with the damage limited to property. It also said that on the night of Monday, October 19, five hooded men entered the home of former Sevilla goalkeeper Sergio Rico and his wife while the family was at dinner, and that, according to the television programme Vamos a ver, the intruders came in through the front door while the alarms were not switched on. We covered that occupied home case in detail in our article on protecting occupied homes, so I will not repeat it here.

What is new is the inside information thread. ABC Sevilla said investigators believe the Guillena businessman may have known some of the targeted residences through friendships with bullfighters, footballers and entertainers. El Debate went further and described the construction work at the Ramos estate. Neither paper claims the matter has been proven, and I will not either. But you do not need the allegations to be proven to take the lesson. Every UHNW home has a list of people who know how it works: the builder, the electrician who wired the gate, the installer who set up the cameras, the florist who knows which door is left open on party nights, the caterer who knows the alarm is off while the kitchen is busy. In an ordinary month that list is short and mostly known to the estate manager. In December it can double.

The Parrott case adds the second ingredient. According to the reporting, the house was entered while its owner was in a stadium in front of television cameras. Every athlete lives with a public schedule, and in the holiday season so does nearly every principal I protect. The family office knows the flight to Aspen leaves on December 19. So does the charter company, the driver, the dog sitter, the house in Aspen, and anyone who sees the children post from the airport lounge. Families who travel for work already know the problem of the publicly known away day. The holiday version of that problem is longer, busier and more crowded, because the people coming and going are the reason the house is hard to read.

Why the holiday season stretches home security for high net worth individuals

In my experience, a house is easiest to protect when its rhythm is boring. The same staff arrive at the same times, deliveries come to one place, the family sleeps there nearly every night and the residential team knows what normal looks and sounds like. The holiday season breaks every one of those patterns at once. That is not a reason to cancel the parties or stay home. It is a reason to plan for each change before it arrives.

More doors open, more often

From mid-November, the gate opens for things that were not on anyone’s list a month ago. Tree and lighting installers. A rental company bringing tables and heaters. Extra housekeepers for the week before Thanksgiving, which falls on November 26 this year. A wine delivery that needs a signature. Each opening is a moment when the perimeter is managed by a person instead of a lock, and people get tired and polite. The access failure I see again and again in December is not a forced door. It is a door held open for someone carrying something heavy.

Strangers become normal

Once the household is used to seeing unfamiliar faces on the property, an unfamiliar face stops being a warning sign. That is exactly the cover a pretext needs. The fake courier, the fake utility worker and the fake police officer all depend on the household being too busy to check. We wrote about how impersonators get through the front door earlier this month, and that risk climbs when the house is expecting a dozen real visitors a day.

The house is partly staffed, not empty

Holiday travel rarely leaves a large estate completely empty. More often a house manager, a housekeeper, a groundskeeper or an older relative stays behind. That is better than an empty house in many ways, but it creates a specific danger. Crews that expect an empty house can panic when they find people inside, and the people inside are usually the least prepared to deal with it. Our article on empty homes and second homes covers the fully vacant property. The partly staffed home needs its own plan, and I will come back to it below.

Early darkness changes the clock

After November 1, sunset in Los Angeles falls before 5 p.m. for weeks. The hours between dusk and the time the family settles in for the night are when the house is busiest and least watched: people coming home, staff leaving, cars in the driveway, lights on in some rooms and not others. Several of the Aljarafe cases, as reported, happened in the evening while a match was on or while the family was at dinner. In winter, that window opens earlier and lasts longer.

What it means for UHNW and HNW protection

High net worth security is usually discussed in terms of hardware: cameras, gates, alarms, safe rooms. The Seville reporting is a reminder that hardware is often already in place when a house is entered. According to the reports, cameras recorded the intruders at the Parrott home. At the Rico home, the alarms were reportedly off while the family ate dinner. The problem in both cases, as described, was not a missing camera. It was the moment, the knowledge and the response.

That is why I think about the holiday season as an information problem first and a hardware problem second. Three kinds of information matter.

  • Schedule information. When the family will be away, when the house will be partly staffed, when a party will keep the gate open, when the principal is speaking at a dinner across town.
  • Layout information. Where the safe is, where the watches are kept, which door the caterers use, where the cameras do not reach, which window does not latch properly, whether a roof hatch or service passage exists.
  • Routine information. When the alarm is set and when it is not, who answers the door after dark, how long it takes anyone to respond to a sound at the back of the property.

In December, all three spread further than usual. Schedule information goes to travel agents, aviation staff, drivers, pet sitters and the staff at the destination. Layout information goes to the decorator, the event planner, the audio visual crew and the extra cleaners. Routine information goes to anyone who spends a few days on the property and pays attention. Nearly all of those people are honest. The point of a professional plan is that you should not have to rely on that.

A case being heard in Oslo this month shows how a delivery pretext uses the busy door. On October 20, 2026, TV 2 reported from Oslo District Court on the trial of five men charged with aggravated robbery, deprivation of liberty and serious bodily harm over a home robbery late on the evening of August 5, 2025. According to TV 2, surveillance video played in court shows a man in a food delivery company jacket carrying what looks like a pizza box ring the doorbell, then force his way in when the door is opened, followed by a man disguised with a police badge and vest. The indictment, as reported, says the father was beaten, the family including two young children and a grandmother was bound with tape, and the intruders demanded a cryptocurrency transfer and took three luxury watches. TV 2 reported that a neighbour who heard screams called police at 23:13 and officers arrived at 23:17. Prosecutors believe the robbery was commissioned and planned. According to their defence lawyers, the two men who wore the disguises admit robbery and deprivation of liberty, while the others partly admit or deny the charges. The trial continues, and the remaining defendants are presumed innocent.

Change the jacket from food delivery to a parcel service, and change August to December, and you have the scenario I brief residential teams on every winter. The father in Oslo told the court he looked through the peephole and saw a courier with a pizza box and a bottle of cola. In the weeks before Christmas, a courier at the door is the least surprising thing in the world.

This is also why home security for high net worth individuals cannot be separated from the rest of the protection program in December. The same family office that arranges the ski trip controls the schedule information. The same residential team that watches the gate controls the routine information. The same estate manager who hires the decorator controls the layout information. Family office high net worth individuals security, residential coverage and close protection for UHNW families on the road all have to work from one plan, or the gaps between them become the way in. A private security for high net worth family program that treats the house, the travel and the office as three separate contracts will usually find out where they did not connect at the worst possible moment.

How a professional protection program handles the holiday season

High net worth security services that work well in December are not doing anything exotic. They are doing ordinary things on purpose, on paper, before the season starts. Here is how I structure it for the families we protect.

1. Build the holiday security calendar in early November

The first step is a single calendar, owned by one person, that shows every date between Thanksgiving and the second week of January when something unusual will happen at the house. Family travel out and back. Guests arriving and leaving. Parties and dinners. Decorator, caterer and rental crew dates. Extra staff start and end dates. Days when the regular house manager is off. Days when the principal has a public appearance.

Once that calendar exists, the protection plan writes itself around it. Nights with high exposure get more coverage. Days when the house is partly staffed get a check-in schedule. Party nights get an access plan. The calendar itself is treated as sensitive: it does not live in a shared spreadsheet with forty viewers, and it is not emailed to vendors. It is the same schedule discipline a family office applies all year, compressed into a ten week window.

2. Treat every seasonal vendor as a controlled visit

The Seville allegations are about someone who allegedly learned a house by working on it. That is the risk to manage with every seasonal vendor. A controlled visit looks like this:

  • The vendor company and the names of the individuals coming are confirmed in advance, and the names are checked against what arrives at the gate.
  • Workers enter through one service entrance and are escorted or supervised by staff or a security officer while they work.
  • Access is limited to the rooms where the work happens. The decorator does not need to see the primary suite, the closet or the study.
  • Nobody photographs the interior, the alarm panel or the camera positions, and that rule is said out loud at the start of the visit.
  • Keys, fobs and gate codes are never handed to a vendor for the season. If a crew must come back, they are let in again.
  • Temporary codes are removed the day the work ends, and the gate log is reviewed.

We cover the day to day version of this in our article on vendor access control for Beverly Hills estates. The seasonal version adds volume and a deadline, which is exactly when shortcuts get taken.

3. Vet seasonal staff the way you vet permanent staff

Extra housekeepers, holiday nannies, event staff and temporary chefs often come through agencies on short notice. The temptation is to accept the agency’s word. In my experience that is where the household’s knowledge leaves the building. Temporary staff should go through the same lawful background screening, reference checks and confidentiality agreements as permanent staff, scaled to the access they will have. They should also get a short security briefing on their first day: which doors stay locked, who answers the gate, what to do if someone unexpected arrives, and who to call. Our household staff vetting article explains how to do that legally in California.

4. Put parcels on a process, not on the doorstep

Parcel volume is the clearest holiday change of all. The process I recommend is simple. All deliveries go to one point, ideally a gatehouse or a receiving room away from the residence. No one opens the front door of the main house to a courier after dark. Signature deliveries are handled at the gate by staff or the security officer. Expected high value deliveries are logged in advance with the sender. Unexpected deliveries that require someone to come inside are refused and rescheduled. Packages are not left visible from the street, because a stack of luxury branded boxes at a gate advertises what is inside. For the screening side of this, see our article on mail and parcel screening for family offices.

5. Plan every party as an event, not a dinner

Holiday parties are where home security for high net worth individuals is tested hardest, because the household deliberately invites strangers in. Valet drivers, caterers, bartenders, musicians and guests of guests are all on the property at once, often after dark, often with doors propped open. A professional event plan includes a guest list checked at arrival, a separate vendor list, a defined party zone with the private areas of the house locked and covered, staff positioned at the transitions between public and private spaces, valuables and documents moved out of reach before the first guest arrives, and a plan for the end of the night when everyone leaves at once and the doors are easiest to slip through. Our article on private event security for Los Angeles estates covers the full event model.

6. Protect the partly staffed house

When the family travels and staff remain, the people at the house need a plan that fits them, not a copy of the family’s plan. That means agreed lockdown routines after dark, a clear rule that nobody opens the door to an unscheduled visitor, check-in calls at set times with the security team or the estate manager, a simple way to call for help that works even if a phone is taken, and a residential officer or patrol presence at the hours that matter. If an older relative is staying, the plan should account for mobility and medical needs too. The staff should know that if intruders come in, they should not resist for property. Their job is to get to a safe place and call for help.

7. Re-tune the residential team for the dark hours

A residential security team that is well briefed in July can be poorly positioned in December. With sunset before 5 p.m., the busy evening window moves earlier. I adjust shift handovers so they do not fall in the middle of that window, move a post or patrol to the rear and side of the property where the cameras show less after dark, and check every exterior light and camera on the first dark evening of November. Motion lighting that was enough in summer can leave long shadows in winter. Camera views that looked fine at noon can be useless at 6 p.m. This is also when we revisit response times: if a sensor trips at the back of the house during a dinner party, who goes, how long does it take, and who calls the police?

At MSB Protection, we have in-house research and development to counter threats to UHNW clients, and a good part of that work goes into exactly these seasonal changes: how lighting, camera coverage and staffing need to shift when the clocks change and the house fills with people. The technology helps, but what makes it work is that someone has walked the property in the dark and asked what a stranger would see.

8. Arm the alarm when it feels inconvenient

One reported detail from Seville stays with me: the alarms were said to be off while the family was at home at dinner. That is extremely common. Families arm the system when they leave and at bedtime, and leave it off in between. Many modern systems allow the perimeter to be armed while the interior remains open, so doors and windows are protected while people move freely inside. In the holiday season, the evening hours are long and busy, so perimeter arming at dusk should become a routine for the house manager, not a decision someone makes when they remember.

Practical holiday checklists for families, estate managers and family offices

The checklists below are the ones I hand to clients in the first week of November. They are short on purpose. A list that nobody reads in December is worse than no list at all.

For the family

  • Agree on one person who owns the holiday calendar, and give that person every date that affects the house, including your own travel.
  • Hold off on posting travel, gifts, deliveries or the house itself until you are home again. Share the photos in January.
  • Ask your children and guests to do the same. A teenager posting from the airport lounge publishes the family schedule.
  • Before you leave, move watches, jewellery, cash and important documents into the safe or off site storage, not into a drawer.
  • Tell the security team when your plans change, even by a few hours. A late return is information they need.
  • If you are at home and someone unexpected rings the bell after dark, let staff or security handle it. Do not open the door yourself.

For the estate manager

  • Confirm every seasonal vendor by company and by name before they arrive, and keep a gate log for the season.
  • Set one receiving point for parcels, and keep packages out of sight from the street.
  • Brief every temporary worker on day one: doors, gate, visitors, phones, who to call.
  • Walk the property on the first dark evening in November with the security lead. Check every exterior light, camera view and gate sensor.
  • Arm the perimeter at dusk, every day, and make it part of the evening routine.
  • Remove temporary gate codes and fobs on the day each job ends.
  • For party nights, lock and cover the private areas of the house before the first vendor arrives.
  • For travel periods, set check-in times with the staff who stay behind, and make sure they know what to do if someone forces their way in.

For the family office

Family office high net worth individuals security in December is mostly about who knows what. The family office usually arranges the travel, pays the vendors and holds the calendar, so it is also the place where the schedule can leak.

  • Keep the holiday calendar in one restricted place. Vendors and travel providers receive the dates they need and nothing more.
  • Ask aviation, travel and concierge providers how they protect itineraries, and limit who in each company can see them.
  • Review which staff, contractors and former contractors have had access to the residences in the past few years, and confirm that codes and credentials have been retired.
  • Coordinate with the residential security provider so that coverage follows the calendar, with extra presence on nights when the house is empty, partly staffed or full of guests.
  • Make sure there is a single point of contact who can authorize a police call, a lockdown or a change of plans while the principal is travelling.

Good security for UHNW family offices treats the calendar like any other asset. It has an owner, an access list and a review date.

How to vet a provider for the holiday season

Many families decide in November that they want extra cover for December, which is also when providers are stretched thin. That is the moment to be careful. What separates recommended HNW security teams from the rest is not the size of the company or the polish of the proposal. It is how they answer practical questions. Here are the ones I would ask any provider, including us.

  • Who exactly will be on my property? Ask for the names and backgrounds of the officers, not just the company profile. Ask whether holiday shifts will be covered by your regular team or by people who have never seen the house.
  • Are they licensed? In California, private security services must be provided under a Private Patrol Operator license, and officers must hold the right guard registration and, if armed, the right permits. Ask for license numbers and check them.
  • Will they walk the property before the season? A serious provider will want to see the house in daylight and in darkness before they commit to a plan.
  • How do they handle vendors and parcels? If the answer is “we watch the cameras”, keep asking.
  • What happens when an alarm trips during a party? You want a named person, a time and a police contact plan, not a general reassurance.
  • How do they protect your information? Your calendar, layout and routines are exactly what a crew wants. Ask how the provider stores them, who sees them and what happens to them when the contract ends.
  • Can they scale up and down? The plan for the week of a large party is different from the plan for a quiet week in January. A good provider should be able to explain both.

Private security for high net worth family homes is built on trust, and trust in this season has to be earned by specifics. If a provider cannot tell you who will stand at your gate on December 24, you do not yet have a plan.

Frequently asked questions

Is the holiday season really riskier for UHNW homes, or does it just feel that way?

I will not quote a statistic I cannot source for your area. What I can say from experience is that the conditions behind many reported break-ins at UHNW homes, a known absence, unfamiliar people on the property, open doors and darkness, all become more common between November and January. Whether your own risk goes up depends on how your household handles those conditions, which is why the plan matters more than the season.

We will be away for three weeks. Is a monitored alarm enough?

For a smaller property, a well maintained monitored alarm combined with a trusted person who checks the house may be reasonable. For a large estate, or a home with high value collections, or a family with a public profile, an alarm alone tells you that something happened. It does not stop it. The reports from Seville describe cameras recording intruders, which shows the limits of recording without a response. Consider a residential officer or patrol presence during the period, especially at night.

How should we handle staff who stay at the house while we travel?

Give them a written routine, a way to reach the security team at any hour, and clear permission to refuse anyone who is not on the schedule. Make sure they know that their safety comes before property. If possible, avoid leaving a single staff member alone overnight at a large property during a long absence.

Do we need close protection over the holidays, or just residential security?

It depends on where the risk sits. If the family stays home and hosts, residential security and event coverage carry the bulk of the load. If the family travels, attends public events or has a principal with a public profile, close protection for UHNW families covers the people while the residential team covers the house. Personal security for high networth individuals and home security for high net worth individuals are two halves of the same plan, and the handover between them, at the airport, the driveway and the front door, is where we spend a lot of planning time.

What should we do if we think a former contractor knows too much about our house?

Do not accuse anyone. Change what they know. Retire codes and fobs, rekey locks they had access to, review camera coverage of any area they worked on, and consider whether any structural features, such as service passages or roof access points, need additional protection. If you have a specific concern about a crime, take it to the police. A security assessment is a practical way to find out what a former insider could still use.

Conclusion: plan the season before it starts

The cases reported around Seville this autumn are still being investigated, and nothing in them has yet been proven in court. But the pattern described in the reporting is one every UHNW household should recognize: a public schedule, a house someone has seen from the inside, and a moment when the alarm is off or the door is open. The holiday season brings all of those together, for ten weeks, in the dark.

Home security for high net worth individuals in November, December and January comes down to a handful of habits. Know your calendar and protect it. Control every vendor and every parcel. Treat parties as events. Give the people who stay behind a real plan. Re-tune your team for the early darkness. None of that requires you to give up the season. It requires someone to plan it with you before the first decorator arrives.

For the full framework, read our 2026 guide to high net worth security. If you would like help preparing your home for the holidays, our security assessment team can walk the property by day and by night, our residential security officers can cover the house on the nights that matter, and our executive protection agents can travel with the family. You can contact us for a confidential conversation.

Sources

About Michael Braun

Michael Braun is a former Special Unit Operator, former Manager at Gavin de Becker & Associates, and Founder & CEO of MSB Protection, an executive protection and residential security firm serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Braun has built his career at the intersection of specialized protective operations, executive protection, residential security, protective intelligence, and security risk management. His experience spans special-unit operations, leadership within Gavin de Becker & Associates, and the development and oversight of private protection programs within demanding UHNW environments.

He has been recognized by The Top 100 Magazine as a leading CEO in the private security field and is the subject of an upcoming Marquis Who’s Who feature highlighting his leadership and contributions to the profession.

Today, Braun is recognized for his work in executive protection, UHNW estate security, residential protection, protective intelligence, adversarial security assessments, and security auditing throughout Beverly Hills and Southern California.

His work focuses on moving private security beyond simply “providing a body” and toward intelligence-led, risk-based protection programs designed to identify vulnerabilities before an adversary can exploit them.

Looking for Executive Protection or Residential Security Services?

If you are a high-net-worth or ultra-high-net-worth individual, family office, estate manager, chief of staff, or executive in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Malibu or Southern California, MSB Protection provides executive protection, residential security, 24/7 protection, protective intelligence, medical-readiness planning, and security risk management.

We evaluate the complete security environment, from threat exposure and residential vulnerabilities to personnel, technology, procedures, protective intelligence, and emergency response, and build a program around the risks that actually exist.

Contact us for a confidential consultation or message us at +1 (805) 285-2807.

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