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Because of the level of security and restricted access they often provide, modern apartment blocks are perfect lairs for drug dealers and other criminals.

One recent correspondent asked what a concierge, caretaker or even a neighbour should do when police officers turn up and demand to be allowed in to get to a particular unit. Strictly speaking, you shouldn’t allow anyone you don’t know into your building without Owners Corporation approval.

It’s complicated. Leading strata lawyer and chairman of the Owners Corporation Network Stephen Goddard says if police have a warrant to arrest someone in the building, it is an offence to hinder them.  Owners and security staff should check the warrant but then give them access.

Also, if police plan to enter the apartment forcibly and a staff member has a key, they should open the door before it is broken down because they have a duty to protect common property (i.e. the unit’s front door).

However, if there is no valid warrant – and search warrants are only valid between 6.00am and 9.00pm – strictly speaking you shouldn’t let them in.

If police ring your intercom to gain access to your floor to search a neighbour’s apartment, you shouldn’t let them up until you have seen the warrant. But you can’t do nothing; if they do have a valid warrant, you could be accused of obstructing them in the discharge of their duty.

Logically and legally, you should go downstairs to check the warrant first although you wouldn’t want to be standing in your jammies and slippers discussing the subtleties of strata law if police were in hot pursuit or, even worse, the person buzzing you turned out to be another crim.

That’s why most people would just let police in to do their job – even if they are breaching by-laws by compromising their building’s security.
To get round this, Owners Corporations could pass by-laws instructing staff and residents what to do when police come calling.  Likewise, police could issue guidelines for officers and strata residents alike.

“Building security systems were never meant to be an early warning for wrongdoers to get rid of evidence,” says Stephen Goddard. “Police with warrants are acting with authority to preserve both the peace and the public interest.”

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