Switching to a volunteer manager: what it really takes

A volunteer manager does not remove the manager’s work: it moves it to an owner, with the same duties and none of the professional licence.

Every year, buildings look at their management contract and wonder whether they could do without one. The question is fair, and the answer depends far less on price than on two things: the size of the building and the real availability of whoever would take it on.

A volunteer manager is an owner elected to perform the manager’s duties, unpaid and without a professional licence. It is neither a lesser status nor a grey area: it is the same mandate, with the same obligations, carried by someone from the building.

What changes, and what does not

What changes: no professional licence to hold, no financial guarantee to underwrite, and a management cost close to zero. The person must own a lot in the building they manage.

What does not change, and this is the point: keeping the association’s accounts, the separate bank account, convening and running meetings, executing voted decisions, keeping archives, mandatory filings, handling claims and arrears. See the separate bank account and keeping documents.

The election is prepared before the meeting

A volunteer manager is elected at a general meeting like any manager, under the majority that applies and for a term the meeting sets. The candidacy and the draft contract must appear in the notice: an election improvised on the day is easy to challenge.

In practice the question is prepared a year ahead: identify the candidate, check they own a lot, prepare the terms, and put the item on the agenda. See the agenda template and changing manager.

The real subject: time

The workload is not proportional to the number of lots, it is proportional to the number of events. A twelve-lot building with no collective heating, no lift and no litigation takes a few hours a month. The same building with a lift, a boiler room, two arrears cases and an ongoing water damage claim is another job entirely.

• Accounts and calls for funds: regular, unavoidable, on fixed dates.
• The annual general meeting: notice, running it, minutes, notifications.
• Contracts and routine upkeep: lift, heating, cleaning, grounds.
• Claims and incidents: unpredictable, time-consuming, often urgent.
• Arrears: the part nobody plans for, and the most delicate between neighbours.

That last point deserves a straight look before voting: chasing charges from the neighbour across the landing is nothing like having an outside professional do it. See the recovery procedure.

Get insured, even where nothing requires it

A volunteer manager carries liability in the exercise of the mandate. A dedicated civil liability policy costs a few hundred a year and is voted as an association expense: it is the first reflex to have, before the first notice goes out.

See also board members’ liability, which follows a close logic.

Signs you should abstain

• A building with heavy equipment: lift, collective boiler room, underground car park.
• Arrears already established, or a procedure under way.
• A major works project within the next two years.
• A single candidate who accepts “just to help out”, with no successor in sight.
• An old set of by-laws, ambiguous on how charges are split.

The last line is the most treacherous: a volunteer manager who stops with no replacement leaves the building without a legal representative, and restarting costs more than the years saved.

A volunteer manager does not remove the work: it moves it to a neighbour, who will have to do it as seriously as a professional — and for free.

The middle path many forget

Between a full professional manager and outright volunteering lies a middle road: keep the manager, but take back in-house what costs most in extra fees and what the board does better — tracking incidents, comparing quotes, checking accounts, preparing the meeting.

See extra fees in the management contract and the board’s role: in many buildings the real saving comes from there, without taking on the mandate.

If you go ahead: the first six months

• Recover all archives and accounts from the outgoing manager, and check they are complete.
• Open the separate bank account in the association’s name and move the funds.
• List every live contract, with renewal and notice dates.
• Check the building’s registration and keep it current: see the national register.
• Set up one space where residents and board follow incidents, documents and decisions.

The first point is the one that bites in practice: an incomplete handover surfaces months later, when a contract or a set of minutes turns out to be missing. See the handover.

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