Question: Should the building manager report breaches of by-laws to the committee? In our building, there are members of the committee who commit breaches. How can we deal with those?
Answer: Your building manager should only do what their contract requires.
Your building manager (aka, caretaker, or onsite manager – the technical term is ‘caretaking service contractor’) should only do what their contract requires. There is no standard contract for caretaking duties in Queensland, so it can and does vary from building to building.
I know from experience it is commonplace for there to be arrangements about what the caretaking service contractor does in relation to by-laws. It really does depend on how this is represented in the contract: perhaps it is a requirement to ‘report’, or it could be to ‘work with the committee’, or it could be to ‘assist’. The bottom line, though, is this: none of those contractual arrangements changes the fact it is the committee’s responsibility to enforce by-laws and nor does it change the fact that an individual (which can mean an owner or an occupier, aka, tenant) can have by-laws enforced.
I think your best bet is to look at this excellent by-law enforcement flowchart: By-law enforcement applications, prepared by the Commissioner’s Office. It answers your question about how by-laws can get enforced against committee members, as I assume from your query that the committee members are not enforcing by-laws when it is in relation to them.
This is general information only and not legal advice.
This post appears in the March 2024 edition of The QLD Strata Magazine.
Chris Irons
Strata Solve
E: chris@stratasolve.com.au
P: 0419 805 898
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