When a property changes ownership, following a standard process in Guesty ensures a smooth transition. This article provides general guidelines for off-boarding a former owner and onboarding a new one, focusing on preserving historical data and maintaining accurate accounting and tax records.
Managing owner data for ownership changes
Before you begin the off-boarding process, understand how Guesty handles owner data to prevent issues with accounting and tax reporting.
Create new owner profiles
Always create a new profile for the new owner instead of editing the existing owner's name. Editing an owner's name can cause historical owner statements and tax documents, like 1099s, to become associated with the new owner, leading to inaccurate reporting. Maintaining separate owner records is critical for preserving accurate ownership history and tax liability.
Handle outstanding expenses
Expenses may arrive weeks after a property is sold or transferred. Establish a process to ensure these delayed expenses are billed to the former owner rather than the new owner. Because you can’t duplicate listings, ownership transitions require careful timing and accounting controls. Use owner reserves or working capital to cover trailing expenses.
Manage owner payouts
Payouts are processed at the owner level, not the property level. This is important to manage when an owner sells only some of their properties but keeps others active in your account. For example, if an owner with six properties loses five through foreclosure but retains one active property, future payouts must continue for that remaining property.
Preserve historical data
Reservation history, reviews, and listing performance data are attached to the listing itself and are not lost when ownership changes. Removing an owner from a property does not remove their historical transaction data. Existing owner statements, 1099 forms, and historical records remain available for historical owners even after you remove them from active ownership assignments.
Off-board the former owner
Follow the steps below to remove a former owner from a property while preserving their financial records.
Sign in to your Guesty account.
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Export and retain all necessary financial records for the former owner, including:
Owner statements
Disbursement records
Reservation reports
Accounting and commission records
Remove the owner's access to the Owners Portal.
Unassign the owner from all applicable properties.
Retain the former owner's profile in Guesty. Don't delete the record, as you need it for historical records and tax purposes.
Onboard the new owner
Follow the steps below to set up a new owner profile and allocate the property correctly.
Sign in to your Guesty account.
In the left-side menu, click Operations.
Select Owners to create a new owner profile. Don't overwrite the existing owner's information.
Create a new business model for the new owner if required.
Assign the relevant property to the new owner.
Move the listing into the new business model.
Reprocess reservations from the agreed ownership transfer date forward to ensure financials are correctly allocated to the new owner.
Handle inactive or off-boarded properties
If a property is fully off-boarded, inactive, and no longer generates payouts or revenue, don't delete the listing. Deleting a property or listing compromises the integrity of historical financial data.
To prevent inactive listings from generating future owner statements, unassign them from their original business model and assign them to a dedicated "dummy" business model. Learn more about Deactivating listings when using Accounting.