Building manager duties: the law, the daily work and the record, in New Zealand

01

What a building manager is, and the law behind the role

A building manager looks after the day-to-day running of a building: its safety, its services, its cleaning and security, and the contractors who work in it. In New Zealand the same work goes under several names: a property manager acting for a commercial landlord, a facilities manager working for the occupier, a body corporate manager administering a unit title development, and a caretaker doing much of the hands-on work. In a smaller building one person does all of it.

No single Act describes the job. Instead, the building manager carries out duties the law places on whoever owns, manages or controls the building. The main ones are:

• The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA). Every business or undertaking, a PCBU, has the primary duty of care in section 36. Section 37 adds a duty on a PCBU who manages or controls a workplace to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that "the workplace, the means of entering and exiting the workplace, and anything arising from the workplace are without risks to the health and safety of any person", and section 38 does the same for fixtures, fittings and plant.
• The Health and Safety at Work (General Risk and Workplace Management) Regulations 2016: among other things, the facilities workers need, such as toilets, drinking water, hand washing and somewhere to eat and rest, which WorkSafe's special guide to the Act says must be "clean, safe, accessible, in good working order and maintained to stay that way".
• The Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016: an asbestos management plan for any structure that has, or is likely to have, asbestos material. WorkSafe notes that buildings built before 1 January 2000 are likely to contain it.
• The Building Act 2004: for a building with specified systems, such as sprinklers, fire alarms, emergency lighting, lifts and backflow preventers, the council-issued compliance schedule, the inspections and maintenance it lists, and the owner's annual building warrant of fitness (BWoF).
• The Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fire Safety, Evacuation Procedures, and Evacuation Schemes) Regulations 2018: an approved evacuation scheme for a relevant building, such as one where 10 or more people work or 100 or more can gather, with trial evacuations.
• The Unit Titles Act 2010, as amended in 2022, for apartment blocks and other unit title developments: the body corporate's duty to repair and maintain common property, the long-term maintenance plan, and the rules for body corporate managers.

The building manager is rarely the legal duty holder in their own name, but the business they work for often is. WorkSafe's Property management FAQs are direct about it: "Under HSWA, a property manager is also a PCBU", with a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, "the health and safety of everybody involved with or affected by work on the property that you are responsible for." The owner or landlord is a PCBU too, and so is each commercial tenant. In practice the building manager is the person who makes sure those duties are met, and who can show it.

02

The key duties of a building manager

In a building manager job description, key responsibilities vary with the building, but they come back to the same list:

• Health and safety: keeping the workplace, the ways in and out, and the fixtures and plant without risk so far as is reasonably practicable, and making sure a notifiable event is notified and its site preserved.
• The compliance schedule and the BWoF: making sure independent qualified persons (IQPs) are engaged, the procedures on the compliance schedule and the owner's own checks are done, and the BWoF is issued, sent to the council and displayed each year.
• Maintenance: planned maintenance of ventilation, lifts, water, electrical and fire systems, reactive repairs, and in a unit title building, the long-term maintenance plan.
• Fire and emergencies: the evacuation scheme and its trial evacuations, the emergency plan, fire wardens, and the response to floods, outages, earthquakes and lift entrapments.
• Contractors: appointing, instructing and checking the cleaning, security, maintenance and grounds companies, and agreeing with each who manages which risk.
• Security, cleaning and facilities: keys, alarms, lock-up and call-outs; the cleaning specification; the washrooms and kitchens workers rely on; waste collections.
• Occupants and money: the point of contact for tenants and residents, budgets, outgoings or levies, and regular reports to the owner or committee.

03

How the role differs in commercial, unit title and owner-occupied buildings

The safety law underneath is the same, but who the building manager answers to, and where their responsibility ends, changes with the building.

• Commercial buildings, such as multi-tenant offices, shopping centres and business parks: the building manager or property manager acts for the landlord and looks after the common areas and shared services, while each tenant runs its own tenancy and has its own duties as a PCBU. The lease sets out who maintains what, and HSWA expects the businesses to work together. WorkSafe's Overlapping duties quick guide describes a shopping mall where two shops find ceiling leaks and the mall owner brings everyone together for one repair plan, rather than each shop arranging its own.
• Unit title buildings, such as apartment blocks and mixed-use developments: the body corporate "repairs and maintains the common property". Unit Titles Services sets out the division of work in its page on service contracts: a body corporate manager is employed for services such as record keeping and administration, handling the body corporate's money, and "regulatory compliance on behalf of the body corporate", and must comply with a code of conduct; "A building manager will carry out the long-term maintenance plan", and may advise on what it should cover, when maintenance is due and what it may cost. WorkSafe treats the body corporate as a PCBU and members of its committee as officers with a duty of due diligence.
• Owner-occupied buildings, such as a company's own offices, a council building, a hospital or a school: the building manager, often called a facilities or property manager, works for the organisation that both owns and uses the building, and the role reaches further into the services people use every day.

In a unit title building the long-term maintenance plan has set terms. According to Unit Titles Services' page on unit title maintenance, it covers at least 10 years; for a large development, one with 10 or more principal units, it covers 30 years and is reviewed every three years, or sooner if something with a material impact arises.

Whatever the building, write down where your responsibility stops. Most failures happen at the edges, between landlord and tenant or cleaner and maintenance contractor, each assuming the other has it in hand.

04

The day-to-day work

Most of a building manager's day is made of small things that keep the building safe, working and compliant. A typical run of it looks like this:

1. A walk-around of entrances, common areas, stairwells, plant rooms, car parks and escape routes, and anything reported the day before.
2. The owner's routine checks under the compliance schedule. MBIE's page on inspection and maintenance of specified systems says "A building owner may be responsible for undertaking some less complex and more frequent inspection tasks", while most systems need at least an annual IQP inspection, some six-monthly or quarterly. The building manager usually organises both, and makes sure the site team's checks are done and written down.
3. Faults and requests from tenants, residents and staff: logged, passed to the right contractor, and followed up until they are fixed.
4. Contractors on site: inductions, access, the asbestos management plan where work could disturb asbestos, and agreement on who controls which risk. HSWA expects businesses with overlapping duties to consult, cooperate and coordinate so far as is reasonably practicable.
5. Service delivery: checking that cleaning, security and maintenance are being done to the specification, not only invoiced.
6. Emergencies and events: if a notifiable event happens, WorkSafe's page on what events need to be notified says the regulator must be notified "as soon as possible" and the site preserved until an inspector says otherwise.
7. Reporting to the owner or committee: what happened, what is open, what needs a decision.

Across the year there are fixed dates to keep. The BWoF is renewed every 12 months. Trial evacuations run at the interval set in the approved evacuation scheme, which Fire and Emergency's page Maintain your scheme (trial evacuations and training programmes) says must not be more than six months, and each trial is reported to Fire and Emergency within 10 working days. WorkSafe's guidance on emergency plans says a plan should be tested at least yearly. The asbestos management plan is reviewed every five years, or when its control measures are reviewed.

Software helps with parts of this, but none removes the need for someone to walk the building.

05

What makes a good building manager, and good evidence

The skills that matter most are organisation and people skills: keeping contractors and dates in order, talking plainly with tenants and owners, and knowing enough about building services to tell when something is wrong and who should fix it. Just as important is being able to show the work. When the council, an insurer, a WorkSafe inspector, the body corporate committee or a tenant asks whether the building is safe and properly run, the answer is in the records:

• The compliance schedule, with the reports of inspections, maintenance and repairs kept alongside it. MBIE's page on managing your BWoF says a building owner "needs to keep all records of inspection, maintenance and repairs undertaken for at least two years after they have been issued".
• The Form 12A certificates from each IQP, attached to the BWoF the owner gives the council each year, and the current BWoF displayed in a public part of the building, such as the lobby or reception.
• Where a procedure was missed, the BWoF Report and Declaration (B-RaD) the owner issues in place of a BWoF, with a Specified System Report and Declaration (S-RaD) from an IQP for each system affected, saying what was missed, why, and whether it materially affected the system's performance. MBIE's page on inspection and maintenance of specified systems says a B-RaD does not change any responsibilities the owner has under the Building Act.
• The asbestos management plan, up to date and readily accessible to workers and their representatives.
• The evacuation scheme, with the record of each trial evacuation and what was reported to Fire and Emergency.
• Records of notifiable events, which WorkSafe's Introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 special guide says the PCBU must keep for at least five years from the date the regulator was notified.
• Water testing for any cooling tower or evaporative condenser. WorkSafe's page on preventing Legionnaires' disease from cooling towers and evaporative condensers expects regular sampling to AS/NZS 3666.3 and written records of what was done when results showed increased microbial growth.
• Logs of routine checks, made at the time, naming who did them and explaining any missed, and a log of faults showing when each was raised and closed.

MBIE's page on fines and penalties lists a maximum fine of $20,000 for failing to supply the council with a BWoF or to display one, so owners want the evidence as a regular report, not a folder found afterwards.

06

Where the record fails, and what SiteClara does about it

The building manager usually has good records of what the IQPs certify and weak records of what happens every day. The owner's weekly checks are ticked on a sheet in the plant room, sometimes for the week ahead. The cleaners' sign-off sheet lives in their cupboard. The lock-up round is walked with nothing to show for it. A broken stair light is mentioned to whoever was passing and never reaches the contractor.

SiteClara records the checks at the location. A printed QR poster, with an optional NFC tag behind it, sits at each place a check is scheduled, such as a washroom, plant room, stairwell, bin room or car park level. Staff of the cleaning, security or site team scan the code or tap the tag on their own phone, with no app to install, see the checks due there, and mark each one done or explain what stopped them. The named person and the time are recorded as it happens, with a photo when one is asked for, and an issue reported at the location goes onto the team's list of open jobs until someone closes it. The supervisor's queue groups open jobs by building and floor, and a supervisor can escalate a job to the building manager, who can answer it.

Each day the supervisor sees what was due, done and missed, records the reason a check was missed, and approves a report that goes to the building manager and other nominated contacts the next morning, showing what was reported, what was completed, what is still open and how the scheduled checks went. Where a cleaning company and a security company work in the same building, each can run its own staff, forms and approval on the same site, and the building manager reads both.

07

Questions people ask

What is the difference between a building manager and a property manager?

A property manager looks after property as an asset for its owner; a building manager looks after the building itself. Tahatū Career Navigator's Property manager job profile says "Property managers oversee the selling, buying and leasing of commercial, industrial and residential property", including managing tenants, budgets and leases and arranging maintenance and repairs. In a unit title building, Unit Titles Services' page on service contracts says "A building manager will carry out the long-term maintenance plan", while a body corporate manager handles record keeping, the body corporate's money and regulatory compliance. In a smaller building one person often does both jobs, and WorkSafe's Property management FAQs say a property manager is a PCBU with health and safety duties for the property they are responsible for.

What is another name for a property manager or building manager?

Tahatū Career Navigator's Property manager job profile lists body corporate manager, commercial property manager, residential property manager, asset manager, portfolio manager, property adviser and real estate manager as other titles for the job. A building manager may also be called a facilities manager or, for much of the hands-on work, a caretaker.

What is the average salary of a property manager in New Zealand?

Tahatū Career Navigator's Property manager job profile gives the most common pay for a property manager as $64K to $126K a year before tax, with a lower range of $51K and an upper range of $183K. For comparison, it gives the average pay in Aotearoa New Zealand as $70,000 a year. A building manager's pay depends on the size and type of building and on how much of the compliance and contractor work sits with them.

08

Further reading, and a list to take away

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 is on legislation.govt.nz, and WorkSafe's Introduction to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 special guide explains the duties, including the changes coming into force on 1 April 2027. For the building itself, start with MBIE's managing your BWoF and its page on specified systems and compliance schedules. Fire and Emergency New Zealand publishes the guidance on evacuation schemes, WorkSafe the guidance on managing asbestos in your building or workplace, and Unit Titles Services the guidance for bodies corporate and their managers.

If you are writing a building manager job description, or taking over a building, check that you know:

• who the PCBUs in the building are, owner, property manager, body corporate, tenants and contractors, and which of their duties you carry out;
• where the compliance schedule is, which specified systems it lists, who the IQPs are, and which checks the owner's own team does;
• when the BWoF is due, and that the current one is displayed;
• where the evacuation scheme is, when the last trial evacuation was, and when the next is due;
• whether the building was built before 2000, and where the asbestos management plan is;
• which contractors work in the building, and what each has agreed to manage;
• how tenants, residents and staff report faults, and how you know each is closed;
• what the owner, the committee or senior management expect to see from you, and how often.