Assessment Readiness Guide Available for Escrow Trust Accounts Best Practice
September 25, 2014
With guidance from its Best Practices Task Force, ALTA has released its sixth Assessment Readiness Guide to help members determine if they are prepared to undergo an assessment to determine compliance with ALTA’s “Title Insurance and Settlement Company Best Practices.”
The guide released today is for the second pillar of the Best Practices, which provides guidance on adopting and maintaining appropriate written procedures and controls for escrow trust accounts.
ALTA also has released assessment guides for all of the pillars except number 3. That will be coming soon. The guides are available exclusively to ALTA members. Separate guides should be completed for each licensed entity a company owns.
The first section of the guide asks for basic company information, including whether your company uses any third party for services, such as title plants, search companies and notaries. The second section of the Assessment Readiness Guide is comprised of a series of questions corresponding to the Best Practices. Along with the questions, the guide includes suggested testing and reviews for a company to conduct to help verify whether an operation follows the Best Practices.
In addition to the Assessment Readiness Guides, ALTA is working with lenders to develop a standard format to communicate compliance. This will be a tool ALTA members can use to respond to lender questionnaires or other inquiries.
Additional resources on ALTA’s Best Practices are available at www.alta.org/bestpractices. Questions about the Assessment Readiness Guide may be sent to [email protected].
Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or [email protected].