USPA Nationwide Security
Private residences and family compounds

Estate security services for private residences and family compounds

Estate coverage is built from a written site plan agreed with the estate manager or the family's office: the gate procedures the household actually uses, the patrol routes that cover the fence line and outbuildings, the response steps for alarms and camera alerts, and the guest and vendor lists the officers enforce.

Coverage runs uniformed or in plain clothes, staffed around the clock or on an occupancy schedule, and it coordinates with executive protection, secure transportation and the household's existing staff so the property, the movements and the staff gate are held by one accountable organization.

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The practice

A residence programme, not a guard at a gate

A camera records what happened. A post decides what is allowed to happen, and a programme is what makes that decision consistent at three in the morning in the third week of an absence.

Residential burglary is a crime of observation. The house is watched, the household's pattern is learned, and the entry is chosen for the hour when the property is empty or the occupants are asleep. That is why a residence post is judged less on how it looks at the gate than on whether it can describe who came to the property last Tuesday and why.

For households with a public profile the exposure is layered. There is the property, there are the movements between properties, and there is the staff and contractor network that comes and goes with keys, codes and alarm access. A security programme that covers only the first of those three leaves the other two in the hands of people it has never vetted.

USPA's estate work is built around that three-part picture. The residence post is the visible part. The movement plan and the household's staff and vendor discipline are the parts that usually explain why an incident did or did not happen.

Method

How an estate programme is built

Six steps, run in the same order on every property, whether the house is a $3 million residence or a family compound with a staff of thirty.

  1. Step 01

    Site survey and written assessment

    An officer supervisor walks the property with the estate manager or the family's representative: gates, drives, fence line, outbuildings, water access, lighting, alarms, cameras, safe rooms and the routes responders would use.

  2. Step 02

    Post orders written to the household

    A written set of orders that names the gate procedure, the visitor and vendor process, the patrol route, the alarm response and the escalation path, with a signature page for the household to approve.

  3. Step 03

    Officer selection and vetting

    Officers are assigned on bearing, residential experience and the physical demands of the property, with background checks, licensing and, where the post is armed, the state firearm authority documented before the first shift.

  4. Step 04

    Staffing and supervision

    Shifts, relief and a supervisor who visits unannounced. The log is reviewed against the post orders rather than trusted, because an undocumented hour is an unstaffed hour.

  5. Step 05

    Reporting and the household record

    A daily written report covering arrivals, exceptions, alarm activity, contractor work and property condition, delivered to the household or estate manager on a schedule the household sets.

  6. Step 06

    Quarterly review

    The post orders are re-read against what actually happened: new staff, new contractors, a trip calendar, a construction project, a change in the threat picture. Coverage is adjusted in writing.

Coverage models

Six ways a residence is staffed

The model is chosen against the property and the household's exposure. Most assignments start with one and scale as the picture changes.

Gatehouse only

Uniformed, one officer, posted at the drive

Visitor log, vendor verification and delivery screening at the gate, with the household's house staff handling the door.

Suited to: Gated communities and properties where the gate is the only realistic approach

Gatehouse and grounds

Uniformed, two officers across an occupied shift

One officer holds the drive while the second walks a documented perimeter route on an irregular schedule.

Suited to: Acreage estates, horse properties and compounds with outbuildings

Twenty-four hour residence coverage

Uniformed or plain clothes, three shifts

Continuous presence, with the overnight shift carrying the property checks and the alarm response.

Suited to: Occupied estates with a standing threat picture or a high public profile

Plain-clothes residential

Plain clothes, one or two officers, unmarked vehicles

Low-signature coverage that fits the street, with the same visitor and vendor process run quietly.

Suited to: Urban estates, gated enclaves and households that do not want a visible post

Absence and seasonal programme

Scheduled visits, documented, with a duty contact

Interior and exterior checks, contractor supervision, storm or freeze preparation and a written report per visit.

Suited to: Second homes, coastal and mountain properties, long travel periods

Event and occupancy surge

Scaled team with a supervisor on site

Guest list enforcement, valet and arrival control, and coverage that returns to standing strength the following morning.

Suited to: Household entertaining, weddings, holidays and family gatherings

Coverage models are priced separately because they are different jobs: a single gate post on an occupied shift and around-the-clock residence coverage across three shifts are not the same product, and combining them into one headline rate hides the difference that matters to a household.

The survey: where a programme is won

Every assignment starts with a walk of the property, done with the estate manager, the family's representative or the householder, and it is deliberately unglamorous. Where does the driveway actually go. Which gates are used in practice rather than on the plan. Which doors the staff leave unlocked in summer. Where a person can stand on a neighbouring parcel and see into the house.

The walk also covers the systems: alarm zones and their real coverage, camera fields and their blind spots, gate operators and their fail state, the safe room if there is one, and how the local police or fire department would reach the property if something went wrong at two in the morning.

The output is a written assessment with the exposures ranked by likelihood and consequence, and a recommended coverage model priced against it. That document is what a household, a family office or an insurer can actually act on.

Post orders: the document the post runs on

Post orders are the difference between a security presence and a security programme. They name the gate procedure, the visitor log, the vendor and contractor process, the delivery screening rule, the patrol route with its checkpoints, the alarm response steps, the medical and fire procedure and the escalation path to the household and to the police.

They also name what the officer may not do. Which areas of the house are out of scope. Which family members are not to be discussed. How a photographer at the gate is handled. What the officer says if a neighbour asks who he works for. Discretion is written down, not left to temperament.

The household signs the orders, the officers are briefed against them, and they are revised when the household's circumstances change. A post running on memory rather than a document is a post that drifts within a month.

A survey comes before a quote

Dispatch answers at any hour. A supervisor walks the property, and the written quote follows the walk rather than preceding it.

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On the property

The gate, the fence line and the hours nobody watches

Four parts of the assignment do most of the work: the gate, the perimeter round, the plain-clothes posture and the list of people who are allowed in.

The gatehouse: the one post every visitor meets

The gatehouse is the property's front desk, and it sets the tone for everything behind it. A good gate officer moves invited guests in quickly, verifies a contractor against the day's schedule, screens a delivery without holding a driver hostage, and refuses the uninvited without creating an incident.

The mechanics are simple and unforgiving. A current guest list. A vendor schedule that reflects what the estate manager actually booked. A visitor log that records name, time in, time out and destination. A rule for what happens when someone arrives unannounced and claims to be expected.

Where a property has no gate, the same work is done at the door, the service entrance or the garage court. The post moves, the process does not.

Perimeter, grounds and the hours nobody watches

Perimeter work is the least visible and most useful part of a residence assignment. Fence and wall condition, gate hardware, lighting, motion detection, outbuildings, pool equipment, utility rooms and the property's own blind spots are checked on a documented route with checkpoints that move.

Routes are deliberately irregular. A patrol that runs at the same times is a schedule an observant intruder can work around, so the officer walks a varied sequence, records what was found at each checkpoint and reports anything that changed since the last round.

At a coastal or acreage property the ground is large enough that the round is the only coverage the far boundary will ever get, which is why the record matters more than the walk itself.

Plain clothes, armed posture and the question of visibility

Most residential posts are unarmed and many are plain clothes, because the objective is a low-signature presence that deters without advertising. A uniform at the gate changes how a street treats a house. For some households that is exactly what they want; for others it is unacceptable.

Armed coverage is a decision made against the threat picture, the household's preference and the state's licensing rules, and it is documented in the post orders before the first shift. Where it is authorised, the officer holds the state firearm authority and the agency carries the insurance to support it.

The mistake either way is a posture nobody agreed to. The household should be able to state, in one sentence, what its officers carry and why.

Staff, vendors and the people who already have keys

A residence is entered legitimately by more people than most households can list: house staff, landscapers, pool and HVAC technicians, designers, tutors, dog walkers, contractors and delivery drivers, many with their own codes and keys.

The post holds one authoritative list of who is expected, when and for what, reconciled with the estate manager's calendar. Anyone not on it is verified with the household before entering. Codes are changed when staff leave, and the change is recorded.

This is the part of estate security that most often prevents a loss, and it is the part that a camera system cannot perform. Technology records what happened. A post decides what is allowed to happen.

Technology, absence and the empty house

Most estate properties already have technology, and the coverage plan is written around what is installed rather than replacing it. Alarms are verified in person, cameras are reviewed for blind spots rather than admired for resolution, and gate and door access is audited against the list of people who should hold it.

The question that matters is what happens in the first ninety seconds after an alert. If the answer is a phone call to an owner who is asleep in another time zone, the property has been notified and nothing has happened on the ground. The post exists to make the response physical and immediate.

Where the household is adding systems, the plan specifies the integration points: which alerts go to the officer, which go to the monitoring centre and which go to the household, so nobody assumes someone else is watching.

A great many estate properties are empty more than they are occupied, and the empty months are when the exposure is highest. Absence coverage is a scheduled programme rather than a post: interior and exterior checks, water and heat verification, mail and package handling, contractor supervision and a written report for every visit.

Storm and freeze preparation is written into the same document. Shutters, water shutoffs, pool and irrigation, generator checks and the trigger for an evacuation or a pre-storm securing visit are named in advance so the household is not making those decisions from an airport.

Seasonal markets have their own rhythm, and the coverage calendar follows it: the Florida and desert seasons, the mountain ski and summer seasons, the Long Island and Cape summer. The plan is reviewed before each season, not after the first problem.

Property types

Every estate is one of a few kinds of site

The archetype decides how the post is physically built: where the officer stands, what the round covers and which approach the property cannot defend.

Hillside and canyon estates

A hillside property is usually reached by one road, and that road is the best security feature the site owns. The post is built around holding that approach: a vehicle at the drive, a foot route across the terraces, and lighting that makes the tree line readable after dark.

Gated communities and enclaves

Inside a guarded community the perimeter is already someone else's job, and the residence post owns everything behind it: the driveway, the guest list, the contractor schedule, the pool terrace and the outbuildings.

Urban estates and close-in residences

A close-in estate has a public sidewalk at the property line, neighbours within earshot and traffic that never stops. Coverage is discreet by design: plain clothes, unmarked vehicles and an officer who can refuse an approach without turning it into a scene.

Equestrian and farm estates

A horse property is a working site with a residence attached. Barns, paddocks, tack rooms, feed and equipment areas are all part of the post, and the officer has to know the trainer, the farrier, the vet and the delivery schedule by sight.

Coastal compounds and beachfront estates

A coastal property has two fronts: the street side and the water side, and the water side is usually the softer one. Beach stairs, dune crossings, seawalls and docks are all covered routes, and the round is written to include them.

Waterfront, dock and island properties

Where a property touches water, the water is a road. Docks, boat lifts, bulkheads, canal frontage and island causeways are all legitimate approaches, and the post covers them as such.

Acreage estates and ranches

Acreage property is a distance problem. The house may be a quarter mile from the gate, outbuildings sit beyond it, and the fence line runs through ground no camera covers. The post is planned in zones with routes that can be walked, driven or checked on a schedule the household cannot predict.

Close-set estate lots

On a tight lot, the property is overlooked by neighbours on both sides, which is an advantage and a constraint. Coverage works the boundary, the service side and the garage court, and keeps a low profile in a street where everyone can see the post arrive.

Mountain and resort compounds

A mountain property is often a second or third home, occupied in bursts and empty for the rest of the year. The post is written for that pattern: heating, plumbing, snow load, rooflines, alarms and access roads are checked on every round, and the report is what tells the owner the house is sound.

Cost and contract

What a written estate quote contains

Estate coverage is quoted per property. The variables are the number of posts, the hours, the coverage model, the supervision, the armed posture and the amount of reporting the household wants. A single gate post on an occupied shift and around-the-clock residence coverage are different numbers by design.

The quote itemises the post hours, the supervisory visits, the written reports and any travel or event surge, and it attaches the state licence, the general liability and workers' compensation certificates and the proposed post orders.

Long assignments are priced on a schedule so the rate holds across the calendar, and the contract names the notice period, the review interval and the conditions under which coverage changes. Nothing about a residence post should be improvised after it starts.

Included with every quote

  • The state agency licence and officer registrations.
  • General liability and workers' compensation certificates.
  • The proposed post orders, with the household's signature page.
  • The reporting format and the schedule it arrives on.
  • The notice period, review interval and change conditions.
Due diligence

How to judge an estate security provider

Ask for the state licence number and the insurance certificates before the first shift, and check the agency against the regulator that issues them. Ask who supervises the post, how often that supervisor visits and what the visit produces in writing.

Ask to see a set of post orders, redacted if necessary, and ask what happens on the third night of a four-night absence when a contractor arrives unannounced. The answer tells you whether the post has a process or a personality.

Ask how officers are selected for a residence, what the turnover is, and how a relief officer is briefed when the regular officer is off. A post that only works when one particular officer is on shift is a single point of failure.

Finally, ask what the reporting looks like. A household that receives a clear daily record can hold the provider to what was promised, and a provider that expects to be held to it will do the job differently.

Licensing

Guard licensing, state by state

Contract security is licensed state by state, and an armed post adds a second authority on top of it. The table below names the body that governs each state in the estate registry.

StateLicensing bodyGoverning authority
CACalifornia Bureau of Security and Investigative Services (BSIS)Business and Professions Code, Division 3, Chapter 11.5
NYNew York State Department of State, Division of Licensing ServicesGeneral Business Law Article 7-A
NJNew Jersey State Police, Private Detective UnitThe Security Officer Registration Act (SORA)
CTConnecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, Security Services UnitConnecticut General Statutes Chapter 534
FLFlorida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of LicensingFlorida Statutes Chapter 493
TXTexas Department of Public Safety, Private Security BureauTexas Occupations Code Chapter 1702
AZArizona Department of Public Safety, Licensing ServicesArizona Revised Statutes Title 32, Chapter 26
VAVirginia Department of Criminal Justice ServicesCode of Virginia Title 9.1, Chapter 1, Article 4
MDMaryland State Police, Licensing DivisionBusiness Occupations and Professions Article, Title 19
NCNorth Carolina Private Protective Services BoardNorth Carolina General Statutes Chapter 74C
GAGeorgia Board of Private Detective and Security AgenciesOfficial Code of Georgia Title 43, Chapter 38
DEDelaware State Police, Professional LicensingDelaware Code Title 24, Chapter 13
ALAlabama Security Regulatory BoardCode of Alabama Title 34, Chapter 27A
TNTennessee Private Investigation and Polygraph CommissionTennessee Code Title 62, Chapter 26
SCSouth Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED)South Carolina Code Title 40, Chapter 18
PACourt of Common Pleas in the county where the agency is licensedPrivate Detective Act of 1953, as amended
WAWashington State Department of Licensing, Private Security Guard ProgramRevised Code of Washington Chapter 18.170
COColorado Division of Professions and Occupations, Office of Private SecurityColorado Revised Statutes Title 12, Article 460
UTUtah Department of Public Safety, Private Security LicensingUtah Code Title 53, Chapter 5, Part 3
WYNo statewide security officer licence, local ordinance and county sheriff controlWyoming Statutes Title 33, Chapter 31 governs private investigative work
IDIdaho State Police, Private Security BoardIdaho Code Title 26, Chapter 26

Requirements are set by each state and amended regularly, and some municipalities add their own registration or alarm-permit conditions. The regulator named above and the licensing office for the property's own city control the current requirement. USPA issues the agency licence, the officer registrations and the insurance certificates with every written quote.

Written quote

Request estate security

Send the property address, the coverage you are considering and the date it needs to begin. A supervisor walks the site before anything is quoted.

Instant quotes, 24/7. We are always open, with live dispatch and a duty officer on call.

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Answers

Estate security questions, answered

What is estate security?
Estate security is a written programme for a private residence: gatehouse and access control, perimeter and grounds patrols, staff and vendor verification, alarm and camera response, and coverage while the household travels. It is staffed by licensed officers working post orders the household has approved, rather than by an alarm system and an occasional patrol.
How is estate security different from a guard at the gate?
A gate officer without orders is a presence. A programme includes the survey that identifies how the property can actually be approached, the written orders that say what happens at each of those points, the visitor and vendor process, the supervision that audits the post and the daily reporting the household can hold the provider to.
How much does estate security cost?
Pricing is quoted per property. The variables are the number of posts, the hours, the coverage model, the armed or unarmed posture, supervision and the reporting the household wants. Send the property details and the coverage you are considering, and a coordinator returns an itemised written quote with the licensing and insurance attached.
Should the officers be armed?
Most residence posts are unarmed, and many are plain clothes, because a low-signature presence is safer and more discreet. Armed coverage is added where the threat picture, the household's preference and state law call for it, and it is documented in the post orders before the first shift rather than introduced after the fact.
Can USPA cover several properties owned by the same family?
Yes. Multi-property households are covered under one account team with a shared standard: the same post orders structure, the same reporting format and the same supervisor, with each property's plan written to its own access, season and threat picture.
How does the service work alongside house staff and a family office?
The post holds one authoritative list of who is expected, when and for what, reconciled with the estate manager's calendar, and it reports into whichever office the household nominates. Officers are briefed on discretion and on the boundaries of the house, and the household or family office signs the post orders.
Do you cover a property that is empty for most of the year?
Yes, and it is a large part of the work. Absence coverage is a scheduled programme of interior and exterior checks, water and heat verification, contractor supervision, mail and package handling, storm or freeze preparation and a written report for every visit.
How quickly can coverage begin after an incident?
Short-notice assignments are staffed from the standing roster, often for the next shift, with the site survey and written post orders completed the same day. Occupied-residence coverage without an emergency typically begins within days of the survey, once the household has approved the orders.
What reporting does the household receive?
A daily written report covering arrivals, exceptions, alarm activity, contractor work and property condition, delivered on a schedule the household sets. Supervisors audit the log against the post orders on unannounced visits, and the assignment is reviewed in writing each quarter.
Which states do you cover?
Estate coverage is staffed across the continental United States, with licensing handled state by state and documented per property. The licensing table on this page names the regulator for each state in the estate registry, and USPA supplies the agency licence and insurance certificates with the written quote.

Need a post at a private residence?

Dispatch and quoting are answered 24 hours a day. The written scope, licensing and insurance certificates are issued with the quote.

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Fact check and technical sources

The statements on this page about premises security, residential risk and licensing in the United States are grounded in the documents below. Each links to the primary source so a household, a family office or an insurer can verify the basis directly.

  • ASIS International

    Residential and premises security guidance

    Industry guidance on premises security, risk assessment and protective programmes for private property and residential clients.

    Official Source →
  • NFPA 730

    Guide for Premises Security

    The National Fire Protection Association's guide to premises security planning, including protection of residential and mixed-use property.

    Official Source →
  • FBI Crime Data Explorer

    Uniform Crime Reporting, property crime

    The federal record of reported burglary, larceny and trespass offences, used to ground the threat discussion in published data rather than anecdote.

    Official Source →
  • Bureau of Justice Statistics

    Household burglary and victimisation reporting

    National survey data on residential burglary, household reporting behaviour and the share of offences that go unreported.

    Official Source →

USPA Nationwide Security services are provided, as applicable, by USPA employees, independently owned franchise offices, or certified contractors participating in USPA’s contractor programs established in 2005, with services performed under applicable state and local licensing requirements. USPA is managed by Kingsman Philanthropic Corp., a nonprofit organization whose mission since 2005 has included locating and assisting missing and trafficked girls. Kingsman’s work has been featured on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.