Changing the ownership of a property with an active tenancy

Chris Horroll
Chris Horroll
  • Updated

In Alto, while you can change ownership on a property record, we suggest only doing this if you need to correct the current ownership (i.e. to reassign the % or split it between landlords).

This article includes: 

Changing ownership if the property has been sold

When a property has been sold to a new landlord, we suggest cloning the property and creating the tenancy again. This leaves the original property against the original landlord and all their accounts history.

If you change ownership via the property record, the original landlord's accounts will be linked to the new landlord and you run the risk of sending the old landlord's details to the new landlord.

Changing ownership if the property has an active tenancy

In Alto, the ownership of a property cannot be changed if there are open transactions against it.

If the property ownership needs to be amended and you experience a message regarding "open transactions", you'll need to check the following in order to remove this message:

  • Property and ledger balances should be zero. Nothing should be awaiting payment to the landlord or supplier(s)
  • The Process agency fees screen should have no entries relating to the property. If there are, you'll need to update them
  • Make sure any suppliers waiting to be paid for the property have been paid
  • Remove any tenancy rent arrears
    • On the tenancy ledger, click the ... (3 dots) next to any outstanding charge lines
  • See if there is anything on the landlord Payment screen (check all Payment Groups just in case)
  • The other possibility is that payments to the landlord or supplier are either sitting on the BACS screen or on the Bank Reconciliation - these need to be reconciled AND updated on the Bank Reconciliation screen

Once you've worked through the above checklist, you should be able to re-assign ownership on that property record. To do so, please see Removing or changing the owner of a property.

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