If You Want to Manage the Condominium Yourself, Why Pay a Company?

There is an interesting contradiction we occasionally see in condominium management. 

A Board hires a professional management company — and then proceeds to manage the condominium themselves. 

Directors decide which contractors should be called. They want to approve routine repairs. They rewrite communications. They become involved in individual service requests. They negotiate invoices. They provide managers with detailed instructions about how operational issues should be handled. 

Eventually, the condominium manager becomes less of a manager and more of an administrator taking instructions from seven different people. 
And then everyone wonders why management isn’t providing more leadership. 


There Is a Difference Between Governance and Management 

A condominium Board absolutely has an important job. 

Directors are responsible for governing the corporation. 

That means establishing priorities, approving budgets, making significant decisions, reviewing financial performance, considering professional recommendations and holding management accountable. 
Management has a different job. 

Management takes those priorities and decisions and turns them into action. 
The distinction matters. 

A well-run condominium might have a Board discussion that sounds like this: 

“The parkade condition is deteriorating. What do you recommend?” 

Management investigates the issue, obtains appropriate professional advice, develops options and brings a recommendation back to the Board. 

A poorly structured relationship can look very different: 

“Call this contractor. Ask for this person. Tell them we want this repair. Get three quotes. Send every quote to the Board. Don’t authorize anything until we discuss it at the next meeting.” 
The manager isn’t really managing anymore. 

They’re coordinating instructions. 

Accountability Requires Authority 

Boards should hold their management company accountable. 

But there is an important principle that sometimes gets missed: 

You cannot reasonably hold someone accountable for an outcome if you don’t give them enough authority to produce it. 

Imagine hiring an experienced executive to run a company and requiring the shareholders to approve every operational decision. 

Eventually, that executive stops leading and starts waiting for instructions. 

The same thing can happen in condominium management. 

Professional managers need reasonable authority to deal with routine operational matters, communicate with owners, coordinate contractors and solve problems within clearly established parameters. 
That doesn’t mean unlimited authority. 

It means defined authority. 

A Board might establish spending thresholds, procurement policies, reporting expectations and areas requiring Board approval. 
Then management operates within those boundaries. 

Good Boards Ask Better Questions. 

Strong Boards don’t disappear from the operation. 

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