Transferring Property Ownership

Ownership of a property changes hands in two ways in REDA: you can move it by hand, or a property sale can move it for you when the deal closes. Both paths write the property's ownership history the same way, so the who-owned-when record stays correct either way. This article walks the manual transfer step by step, explains exactly what a closed sale does to the property automatically, covers the guard that stops you quietly undoing a closed sale, and flags the one thing REDA does not re-sync — portfolio membership — with its workaround. No prior REDA experience is assumed.

Two ways ownership changes

Before the how, the when. A transfer is warranted whenever the account that owns a property changes — a sale between owners, an internal restructure, correcting a mis-set owner. REDA offers two routes to the same result:

Whichever route you take, the property's Ownership Trail — its running who-owned-when history — is written automatically (see Owners & Ownership History for how the trail works). You never edit the trail by hand.

Manual transfer, step by step

A manual transfer is two fields, changed together, and a save. On the property's Details tab:

If the owner and start date fall out of step during the change, the save is refused so the history can't be corrupted:

Restore both fields as a complete pair and save again. That's the whole manual procedure — REDA does the history work for you.

Automatic transfer when a sale closes

When you sell a property through a sale deal, you don't touch the owner fields at all — closing the deal moves ownership for you. A sale in REDA is an Opportunity (REDA's single "deal" record) that runs along a stage path. For a property sale that path is:

Property Selection → Binder → Contract Out → Under Contract → Funded → Clear to Close → Closed Won

While the sale is open, REDA keeps the deal's selling side pointed at the property's current owner, so the paperwork always reflects who's actually selling. The transfer happens the moment you set the stage to Closed Won:

The stages before Closed Won have their own guards worth knowing. The sale price, for one, must be present before the deal advances into its later stages — try to move on without it and REDA stops you:

Settlement statements, payment schedules and commissions on the sale are covered in the property-sales articles (see The Property Sale Lifecycle); here the point is simply that Closed Won is the trigger that transfers ownership.

The reopen guard

Because Closed Won already moved ownership, REDA won't let you casually pull the sale back to an earlier stage — doing so would leave the property owned by the buyer while the deal claims it never closed. Try it and you'll see:

The message tells you the order to work in. First, go to the property and restore its previous Owner Account and Ownership Start Date (which rewinds the ownership trail to the seller). Then change the sale's stage. Sequencing it this way keeps the deal and the property telling the same story at every step.

After the transfer: check your portfolios

There is one thing REDA does not keep in step automatically, and it's the source of a common surprise. A Portfolio is an owner-driven grouping of properties. When you set a property's owner as the property is first created, REDA syncs portfolio membership from the property's side. But when you change the owner of a property that already exists — which is exactly what a transfer is — that property-side sync does not fire.

The workaround is quick. Open the affected Portfolio Account (the account whose portfolio is out of date) and re-save it — for example, toggle its Is Active flag and save. That triggers the portfolio-side automation to recompute membership: rows for accounts that no longer own the property are deactivated (never deleted, so history is preserved), and any missing rows for the new owner's portfolios are created. Do this for both the old and new owners' portfolio accounts and the membership lands correctly. See Portfolios for the full picture.

Worked example: selling Meridian Court #101

Meridian Court #101 is owned by Continental Holdings, with an ownership trail entry open from 1 Jan 2026. A sale deal — Meridian Court #101 [ Property Sale ] — is raised with buyer Meridian Capital, an Under Contract Date of 1 Jun 2026, and a Sale / Purchase Price of 1,000,000.00. The deal is worked along its path to Closed Won. Here's what REDA writes on the property:

Then the portfolio check: Continental Holdings' portfolio still lists #101 as active. Opening Continental Holdings' Portfolio Account and re-saving it recomputes membership — #101's row for Continental Holdings is deactivated, and it's picked up under Meridian Capital's portfolio. If, later, someone tries to move the closed sale back a stage to "reopen" it, REDA refuses with the reopen-guard message until the property's owner is restored to Continental Holdings first.

Reference: what each route does

Where to go next

1. Owners & Ownership History — how the ownership trail is written, read, and repaired.
2. Portfolios — owner-driven groupings and how membership recomputes.
3. The Property Sale Lifecycle — the full sale deal, from selection to settlement.
4. Ownership Behind an Account — the parties and percentages behind an owner account.

Frequently asked questions