Q: I would like to know what the relationship should be between our board of directors, our management company and our superintendent. What are their roles supposed to be? Who reports to whom?

Also, our directors and superintendent do repairs and installations rather than having tradespeople do them. I worry about insurance and the lack of guarantees for such jobs if they are bungled. Who decides when tradespeople should be called in?

A: We sent this question to Gerry Hyman, a Toronto condominium lawyer and the author of The Condominium Handbook, available through the Canadian Condominium Institute.

The Condominium Act of 1998 specified that the objects of a condominium corporation are to manage the property and the assets of the corporation, if any, on behalf of the owners. The corporation has a duty to take all reasonable steps to ensure that owners and occupiers of units, lessees of common elements and the corporation’s agents and employees comply with the act, declaration, bylaws and rules.

Numerous other duties and obligations of the condo corporation are specified throughout the act. It stipulates that the board of directors will manage the affairs of the corporation. The board is responsible for ensuring the corporation performs in accordance with its duties as specified in the act.

A board of directors is not entitled to delegate its decision-making authority to a manager or to a management company. It is the function of management to advise the board and to carry out the board’s instructions.

Management may carry out routine, day-to-day functions without board approval and will usually be given authority to order necessary supplies up to a certain value.

A superintendent will likely be required to report to the property manager. The manager, however, should not be given the authority to make decisions as to the termination of the employment of a superintendent or to the hiring of a replacement. The manager should make recommendations to the board in regard to those matters and carry out the board’s instructions.

The board of directors determines if, when and by whom repairs are to be done. It’s not uncommon for a superintendent to carry out minor common element repairs and installations.

It is, as the reader suggests, inadvisable for the superintendent to become involved in anything other than the most routine repairs and installations. Significant work should always be carried out by qualified contractors who provide evidence of liability coverage and offer suitable guarantees.

The performance of repairs is not a function of a condominium director. Should repairs be carried out negligently by a director and result in injury or damage, the corporation’s bylaw providing for indemnification of directors in the event of liability will probably be inapplicable.

There will likely be no coverage under the corporation’s directors and officers liability insurance policy.

The corporation could be held liable if the director carried out the work with the express or implied consent of the board of directors.

The corporation’s liability insurance policy may not provide coverage in such circumstances.