Owner Resales and How they Affect Online Payments

TOPS Professional™ has a special feature built into the Owner module to handle Owner Resales. The Owner Resale feature splits the payment history between the previous owner and the new owner. That way, you have an accurate history of the charges and payments that go with the previous owner while the new owner has only those charges and payments from the settlement date forward. It is very important to use the TOPS Owner Resale function when a home has sold so you keep the owner payment history with the correct owner.

If you have a TOPS Community Web Site, it is essential to the integrity of the TOPS data displayed on the web site that you use the Owner Resale function rather than just changing owner names. You should never just change the owner name in the Maintain Owner screen. While this is a simple way to handle a resale, you lose all traces of the previous owner and the charge and payment history belonging to that owner. This distorts the history records you are trying to maintain for the community, by making it look like the new owner has owned the home for much longer than he/she has because they end up having the previous owner’s payment history attached to them. Because of this, you’re also giving that new owner access to the previous owner’s payment records through the uploaded 12 month owner history on the web site and on any statements that are sent to that new owner. This could be a serious breach of confidentiality.

We also receive complaints from new owners who cannot log into the web site. This is because the resale wasn’t handled correctly in TOPS. When you change an owner’s name in the Maintain Owner screen, rather than using the Owner Resale function, none of the web site login information is updated. So, TOPS may be showing the new owner’s name, but the owner record still has the old owner’s web site login and password. Of course, once this has been reported and their login information has been updated, they now see that the owner balances and 12 month owner history on the web site are not correct, because the bulk of that history actually belongs to the previous owner.

You can prevent these problems and the complaints from your owners by using the TOPS Owner Resale function when a home sells to a new owner. The Owner Resale function guides you through the simple steps involved and let’s you add the new owner at the same time. It’s quick, it’s simple, and it keeps the payment history accurate between the old and new owners. So why not use it?

By: Jeff Hardy