Scottish agencies using Alto

Alto was designed foremost with English estate agency procedures in mind, however it's also suitable for and is used by lots of Scottish estate agencies on a daily basis.

As property purchases are administered differently in Scotland, we've described how Alto can best be used in line with Scottish procedures.

This article includes: 

• Publishing the Home Buyers Report
• Making tenancies periodic straight away
• Notes of interest/offers on properties
• Conclusion of missives

Publishing the Home Buyers Report

In order to make the Home Buyers Report accessible to interested parties, it's recommended that the report be uploaded to a suitable online location.

Once the report is available online, its web address can be added as a link to your property record. To do this:

1. Click Properties on the main toolbar
2. Select the relevant property from Recent & Favourite Properties
   1. Alternatively, find the property using the Search Properties bar in the top right
3. Click Media on the side menu
4. Click the Web Links top tab
5. Click Add Links
6. Enter a Description for the link, i.e. Home Buyers Report
7. Enter the web address in the Url field
8. Click Save

When your property is uploaded to the portals, this link will be included on the additional links so that anybody interested in the property can click on the link to access a copy of the report.

Making tenancies periodic straight away

Despite all Scottish tenancies being periodic, Alto insists upon the tenancy being proposed as a fixed term. Therefore, when adding a new tenancy, simply set it up initially as a one-month fixed term tenancy and once the tenancy has started, renew it to periodic immediately. To do this:

1. Click Tenancies on the main toolbar
2. Select the relevant tenancy from Recent & Favourite Properties
   1. Alternatively, find the tenancy using the Search Properties bar in the top right
3. Click Tenancy on the side menu
4. Click the Tenancy top tab
5. Click New Periodic Term at the bottom of the screen
6. Amend the Rental Amount and Deposit Required (if relevant)
7. Click New Periodic Term
8. Check that a new rent charge has been added to the list of charges
9. Click Close

The tenancy will now identify as periodic, i.e. have no tenancy end date, and the rent will continue to be demanded after the first month indefinitely.

Notes of interest/offers on properties

To record a note of interest against a property, we recommend following the below steps:

1. Carry out the Make an Offer action on the property record as normal. Then...
2. Quick Complete/Cancel all of the default offer tasks for the property within the Tasks widget on the Main Dashboard
3. Add a new Todo Task on the property Overview, with a Description of "Note of interest submitted" and associate it with the purchaser's Contact record by adding their name to the task. Click Save
4. The "Note of interest submitted" task will be visible within Todo in the Tasks widget on the Main Dashboard, acting as a reminder to review all notes of interest and offers made.
   Should the seller add a deadline, all parties that have submitted a note of interest must be informed of the closing date, all of whom can easily be found within Offers in the Tasks widget, where you can then make Notes and mark them as Complete, as appropriate

When an actual offer has been made:

1. Accept the successful offer in the normal way
2. Reject all the other outstanding offers for the same property
3. Proceed with the sale in the normal way

Conclusion of missives

Alto uses the English terminology of "Exchange" to indicate the exchanging of contracts; this is equivalent to the Scottish conclusion of missives.

Related articles:

Uploading a property to the internet

Changing a tenancy to periodic