Board member vs property manager

Who has the authority

A board member is one of the volunteer owners who sits on the board, the body your declaration and bylaws give the legal authority to govern the association. That includes adopting the rules the declaration and bylaws empower it to adopt, deciding how to handle maintenance and repair, and directing contracts and enforcement. When a board investigates a decision reasonably, acts in good faith, and stays within its authority, courts defer to its judgment instead of second-guessing the method it picked.

"Where a duly constituted community association board, upon reasonable investigation, in good faith and with regard for the best interests of the community association and its members, exercises discretion within the scope of its authority under relevant statutes, covenants and restrictions to select among means for discharging an obligation to maintain and repair a development's common areas, courts should defer to the board's authority and presumed expertise."

Source: Lamden v. La Jolla Shores Clubdominium Homeowners Assn., Supreme Court of California

What the manager actually does

A property manager is a professional the board hires, not an owner elected to the role. The job is to carry out the board's decisions day to day: collecting assessments, coordinating vendors, answering owner requests, and keeping the records the board needs to govern. Community association management has its own credential ladder, running from entry level CMCA, up through AMS, to PCAM at the top, each tier requiring more experience and coursework than the last.

"the pinnacle of professional achievement for managers with advanced-level skills and experience"

Source: Manager Designations (CMCA, AMS, PCAM), Community Associations Institute, Illinois Chapter

A manager holding PCAM has years of documented track record behind that credential; one holding only CMCA is newer to the field. Neither credential hands the manager authority the board hasn't granted.

Why mixing them up causes problems

New board members sometimes assume the manager runs the association and the board just shows up to meetings. Others assume that hiring a manager makes the board's own responsibility disappear. Both are wrong. Rule-making authority stays with the board; the manager works inside whatever scope the board's management contract defines.

Exactly what a manager can decide without board sign-off, a small repair versus a large one, a routine vendor versus a new contract, is set by your management contract and bylaws, not by any industry-wide rule. And not every association has a manager at all: smaller communities often run self-managed instead.