NCS News Brief: New 2016 ALTA Commitment for Title Insurance

Download MEMO below and New 2016 ALTA Commitment HERE.

As of October 15, 2017, all Chicago Title offices in the State of Illinois are now issuing the 2016 ALTA commitment form adopted by ALTA.  This is a nationwide ALTA standard.  In states where you have not already been seeing this form, you will in the near future.  The use of the commitment has not changed in any fundamental way, but does contain certain revisions and important clarification regarding the obligations of all parties. 

On the first page of the new commitment, you will see at the top of the form that a new NOTICE provision has been incorporated as part of the commitment.  This NOTICE provision sets forth in the first paragraph that this ALTA commitment is only an offer to issue a title insurance policy and nothing more.  In addition, all claims under the commitment must be based solely in contract law.  In other words, the commitment is really just the initial step in the formation of a binding contract, that being the title insurance policy.

The second paragraph of the NOTICE provision states that the “commitment is not an abstract of title, report of the condition of title, legal opinion, opinion of title, or other representation of the status of title.”  Essentially the title commitment is not to be seen as an informational product and not a reflection as to the state of title, but rather a limitation on the obligation of the Title Company to that of issuing a policy.

Read More