Building management

Introduction

Building management (in the UK) is a discipline that comes under the umbrella of facilities management. A building manager supervises the hard and soft services of a built structure, ensuring that the security, health & safety and maintenance of this built structure are in place to a satisfactory level. There are esentially, two types of building manager positions: residential and commercial. Hard services usually relate to physical, structural services such as fire alarm systems, lifts and so on whereas soft services allude to cleaning, landscaping, security and suchlike human sourced services.

Residential Building management

In a residential environment, a Building manager will typically supervise a team of porters or security officers, cleaners, eltrical and mechanical contractors and depending of the size of the development, a team of administrative staff.

The building manager will liase between all the parties involved in the day to day management of the development:

The managing agent: An external property management company that will issue and chase up the service charges, supervise the annual budget and approve any additional works and or requirements. They also manage the on site team (i.e. the building manager and his staff). They do this on behalf of the residents and the freeholder and they are only responsible for the communal areas and not the apartments.

The leaseholders: The owners of the apartments can be at the same time occupiers. They are responsible for the maintenance of their apartments (known as demised premises) and they pay an annual service charge, inclusive of a fee, to the managing agent.

The freeholder: The freeholder has possesion over the freehold of teh devlopment, i.e. the communal areas and the land the site was built on. Normally, the freeholder is the developer but in some developments, the leaseholders, when formed into a residents association, purchase the freehold.

The contracted maintenance companies that have been appointed to maintain the plants and systems of the building (fire alarms, electrical and mechanical, cctv, intercom system, car park, Tv system, landscaping etc.)

It is because of this delicate balance of powers that the job of the building manager could be described as a "balancing" act

Commercial building management

This subdivision of building management will not defer much from the previous one, the main difference being that the building will normally be made up of commercial units and or offices. The tenants will, in this case, be companies and the building manager will probably have some involvement in the sales aspect and will be responsible for ensuring that the office space is let at all times.

References:

Facilities Management Association

www.fmassociation.org.uk

British Institute of Facility Managers

www.bifm.org.uk

Park, A Facilities Management: An Explanation Palgrave NY, 1994