Does a resident manager enforce by-laws?

It is very well accepted that a body corporate cannot delegate the power to enforce by-laws. Taking action for breaches of by-laws is something that only a body corporate can do. It cannot farm that right out to third parties - including resident managers. Most caretaking agreements include a specific reference to the resident manager’s role when it comes to by-laws.


So, a few golden rules when it comes to these situations:

• It is not resident managers role to physically enforce by-laws. Resident managers are not required to manhandle people out of the pool after hours or physically tow their cars. All they can, and should, do is make the people aware of the fact that they are breaching the by-laws. If there are potentially dangerous issues (like a wild party in a unit), then the police should be called. 

• Be aware of the different hats you may be wearing. One is as a caretaker and one is potentially as a letting agent. If the people in the pool after hours are owners then there is not much more resident manager can do. If they are tenants then resident manager's role potentially goes a bit further as letting agent. This is because if the body corporate breaches the owner or the tenants, then it will more than likely bounce back to resident manager from the owner as their letting agent. Hopefully, your tenancy agreements / terms and conditions allow you to evict people if they breach the by-laws. 

• Create a template for by-laws breach reports to send to your body corporate manager or committee. This would include the details of the breach including the date, time, the person complaining, what was complained of and the details of the breach. Reference names and registration numbers etc should be in this template. The form which the body corporate must use to enforce by-laws is here.