In accordance with the Tenant Fee Act 2019, the steps below outline how to refund part of a deposit to a tenancy, whose deposit exceeds 5 weeks rent and is registered with a custodial deposit scheme.
If your agency uses a custodial deposit scheme to hold tenancy deposit monies, the part refund is processed on the schemes website before being processed in Alto.
There are two types of deposit schemes:
- Insured deposit scheme - The agency holds deposit money during the tenancy
For more information on processing a Partial deposit refund for an insured deposit scheme, click here - Custodial deposit scheme - The deposit scheme holds deposit money during the tenancy
Replicate a part deposit refunded by the scheme
The steps below should only be carried out after processing the part refund on the custodial deposit scheme website and in accordance with the Tenant Fee Ban.
- Click Tenancy on the main toolbar
- Select the relevant tenancy from Recent & Favourite Tenancies
- Alternatively, find the tenancy using the Search Tenancies bar in the top right
- Click Tenancy on the side menu
- Click Actions
- In the dropdown menu, click Refund
- The Refunds For This Tenancy window opens. Click Add Refund Item
- Charge Item - Click Deposit, and then tick Deposit from the list, to make the deposit available to use
- Description - Edit this to Part Deposit Refund
- Net Amount - Enter the part deposit amount which is being refunded to the tenant
- Click OK
The Refunds For This Tenancy screen displays the deposit amount being refunded direct to the tenant by the custodial scheme.
- Select the Refund Type as Internet from the dropdown menu
- Untick Send Refund as you don't need to send a notification to the tenant
- Select the Refund from Client Account as the Deposit Account from the dropdown menu
- Total To Refund shows the part amount of deposit
- Click Update
A record of the transaction appears as a debit in your virtual deposit account. This can be viewed in Accounts on the main toolbar, then Bank Reconciliation on the side menu. You can then View the Deposit Account.