Decertification of ALTA Policy Forms | SoftPro Blog

The American Land Title Association (ALTA) has announced that, in line with prior guidance, certain 2006 series ALTA policy forms have been decertified as of December 31, 2022. ALTA decertification establishes that ALTA no longer officially supports the forms, and will not be updating them.  However, the use of these forms by Policy Form Licensees (including title insurers and agents) will likely continue for some period of time, and there is nothing about ALTA decertification that prohibits the continued use of any decertified ALTA Form.  In addition, knowing that these forms will be seen in the market, ALTA will continue to make these forms available on the ALTA site in a “Decertified Basic Policies (12-31-2022) – 2006 Series” subsection of the policy forms page of the ALTA site through at least the end of 2023. 

Affected Forms

• ALTA Loan Policy – 6/17/2006
  
• ALTA Owner’s Policy – 6/17/2006
• ALTA ECRLP – AP – 4/2/15
• ALTA ECRLP – CA – 4/2/15
• ALTA Homeowner’s Policy – 12/2/13
• ALTA Residential Limited Coverage Junior Loan Policy – 8/1/12
• ALTA Residential Limited Coverage Mortgage Modification Policy – 12/1/14
• ALTA Short Form Expanded Coverage Residential Loan Policy - Assessments Priority -04-02-2015
• ALTA Short Form Expanded Coverage Residential Loan Policy - Current Assessments - 04-02-2015
• ALTA Short Form Residential Limited Coverage Junior Loan Policy - 04-02-2013
• ALTA Short Form Residential Loan Policy - 12-03-2012
• ALTA Short Form Residential Loan Policy - Current Violations - 04-02-2015
• ALTA Commitment for Title Insurance – 08-02-2016
• ALTA Short Form Commitment for an ALTA Short Form Residential Loan Policy – 12-01-2017

There are also specific 2006 Policy Forms that are not being decertified at this time:

• ALTA Limited Pre-Foreclosure Policy – 12/3/12
• ALTA Limited Pre-Foreclosure Policy – Date Down Endorsement – 12/3/12
  
• ALTA U.S. Policy Form – 12/3/12

In addition, at a later point, Endorsements that are specific only to the 2006-series Policy Forms will be decertified, and Endorsements that are applicable to both 2006-series and 2021-series Policy Forms will be migrated to 2021 heading standards so the application to the 2021 Forms will be obvious.  The dates for these actions have not yet been established.  For any questions about which Forms apply to which policy form series, please see the attached “Endorsement Chart v 2.0 05-12-2022”, which is posted to the ALTA Policy Forms site and updated as needed.

Technical Corrections

There were two technical corrections issued on 12/31/2022 to existing policies, along with notice of one policy's version control heading correction which does not require a technical correction since no substance of the Endorsement is being revised. 

• Technical Correction #1: Expanded Coverage Residential Loan Policy - Current Assessments [2021 v. 1.01 (12-31-2022)]
  • Changes the reference in Covered Risk 28.g. to reference the name of ALTA Endorsement 9.10 as "ALTA 9.10 Restrictions, Encroachments, Minerals—Current Violations - Loan Policy.]
• Technical Correction #2: "Short Form Residential Loan Policy - Current Assessments
  • In the Addendum to the Policy, adds "ALTA" before the name of the Policy to which the Addendum applies.
• Modification: Version Control Header Format Change: Short Form Residential Loan Policy - Assessments Priority
  • Modify the prior 11-18-2021 technical correction versioning date to match the 2021 style from the ALTA Forms Style Guide. This does not represent a technical correction, as no substance is being changed in the policy.

As part of our Saved You a Seat webinar series, we hosted an in-depth discussion about the new ALTA Forms Collection with experts from ALTA. They covered where the form changes came from and why they were implemented, a high-level overview of the form changes, the questions you should ask your underwriter(s) about when and how the new forms should be used, and more. 

Watch a recording of Saved You a Seat Episode 41: Everything You Need to Know about the ALTA 2021 Forms