ALTA® Short Form Policy Adopted
July 10, 2007
The ALTA Short Form Residential Policy received several changes this year to make the use of the form more flexible. The form was adopted as proposed at a recent meeting of the ALTA Board of Governors.
The most important change to the form was to the incorporation by reference provision, from the '92 ALTA Loan Policy to the '06 ALTA Loan Policy. However, a change in format and approach was also made. Instead of the inclusion of selected routine residential endorsements by either check-box or by incorporation by reference (two alternative forms printing options) which had been the approach incorporated by the '00 version of this form, only the incorporation by reference approach -- with check boxes only for specialized endorsements -- was presented.
After input from industry participants, two things became clear: greater flexibility in the form's format should be provided (including reverting to the optional all-check-box approach); and at least two of the endorsements included in the '06 version of this form's "automatic" incorporation by reference list of endorsements required more transactional underwriting and probably should not have been included in the automatic incorporation section but be additional check-boxed itmes. The adopted form includes both of these changes.
The form is available on ALTA's Web site under the Policy Forms Online.
Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or communications@alta.org.