What Does a Building Manager Do?
If you’re on a strata committee and wondering what a building manager actually does — or whether your building needs one — this guide is for you. A building manager (you’ll sometimes hear “facilities manager” or “caretaker”) looks after the day-to-day physical running of a strata building: the common property, the plant and equipment, the contractors, and the standards residents see every day.
The core duties of a building manager
- Inspecting the building — regular, documented walk-throughs of lobbies, car parks, plant rooms, roofs and amenities, so faults are found and logged before residents need to report them.
- Managing contractors — arranging inductions, checking licences and insurance, supervising the work and signing off completion. The building manager is the reason the cleaner, the lift technician and the fire contractor all reliably turn up.
- Running the maintenance programme — preventative schedules for plant and equipment, coordinated with the capital works fund.
- Following up defects — in newer buildings, identifying builder’s defects and pursuing them through the warranty process before the statutory windows close.
- Keeping the compliance calendar — annual fire safety statements, lift and anchor registrations, and pool compliance, all tracked and documented.
- Reporting to the committee — a written monthly report: what was done, what was found, what it cost, and what’s coming next.
Building manager vs strata manager — who does what
The two roles work side by side, and they’re very easy to mix up — here’s the simplest way to keep them straight:
| Building manager | Strata manager | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | The physical building | The legal entity |
| Works on | Common property, plant, contractors, defects | Levies, insurance, meetings, bylaws, records |
| Appointed under | Building Management Agreement | Strata Management Agency Agreement |
| You call them when | The garage door fails, the lobby’s dirty, a contractor doesn’t show | You need a levy notice, an insurance certificate, an AGM |
Most schemes benefit from both. The strata manager administers; the building manager operates. If one supplier offers to do both at a surprisingly low price, it’s perfectly fair to ask which half will be getting less attention.
Does your strata need a building manager?
For smaller buildings — simple buildings that are comprised of under 20 lots with no shared plant (pool, HVAC, lifts) — a part-time caretaker arrangement is often all you need.
On the other hand, if a building includes amenities such as lifts, pools, gyms or commercial lots are involved, the question usually isn’t whether you need building management, but how many hours of it. A helpful test: does your committee know, this month, what was inspected, what was fixed and what it cost? If not, that’s exactly the gap a building manager closes — and we’re always happy to talk it through with you.
What does a building manager cost?
Building management is priced on scoped hours and duties, set out in the Building Management Agreement. It’s worth being a little careful with quotes that don’t specify hours — an unscoped agreement can mean paying for presence rather than performance.
The opposing consideration is to ask – what does it cost to not have a building manager on site? The role of a building manager is to an ongoing operational figure at the building to ensure preserve the building’s value over time.
Does your building need to enlist a dedicated service that will help ensure that the resources and amenities continue to service the residents of the strata plan? Ask Excel to write a proposal for your building.
Excel Building Management has provided directly employed building managers to Sydney strata schemes since 2001 — 50+ buildings and more than $10 billion of property in our care.