ALTA Table A items: the full 2026 list, item by item

The short answer

Table A is the menu of optional items a client can add to an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey. Under the 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements, effective February 23, 2026, Table A has twenty defined items plus item 21 for anything else the surveyor and client negotiate. The new item is 20, a table that summarizes potential encroachments and locates each one on the plat.

Lenders choose Table A items to answer underwriting and title questions: is the building inside the setbacks, is there enough parking, does the property depend on an easement, does anything encroach. Which items a lender requires is set by its own program or counsel's practice, not by the standards. Fannie Mae's Multifamily Guide, for example, lists 1, 2, 3, 4, 6(a) and (b), 7(a), 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 18 and 20.

What is Table A on an ALTA survey?

Every ALTA survey must meet the minimum standards in the body of the ALTA/NSPS requirements: boundary, improvements, easements of record, observed evidence of use. Table A, titled Optional Survey Responsibilities and Specifications, lists the extras. The client checks the items it wants, and the surveyor includes them.

The standard's own note sets the rules. When any of the first twenty items are selected, the exact wording and the fee may be negotiated between surveyor and client. Some items may be required by state statute or local rule, in which case they must be included. Additional negotiated items are numbered 21(a), 21(b) and so on, and any negotiated change to an item's wording must be explained on the survey. If an engineering design survey is wanted, it is negotiated under item 21, notwithstanding items 5 and 11.

Which ALTA/NSPS standards apply in 2026?

The 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements took effect on February 23, 2026. ALTA adopted them on October 8, 2025 and NSPS on October 17, 2025, and the document is versioned 11.25.2025. ALTA's survey standards page also publishes a redline against the 2021 standards.

For a lender in late 2026, the practical check is the surveyor's certification. A survey ordered for a closing now should certify to the 2026 requirements and list the Table A items actually performed. A lender's survey order or checklist still written against the 2021 numbering will ask for the wrong item 20. Program guides have moved too: Fannie Mae's Guide section on surveys now requires as-built surveys to be made to the 2026 requirements.

What are all the Table A items in 2026?

The table below lists every item and sub-item in the 2026 Table A, in the standard's numbering, with a short description and the reason a lender typically asks for it. The descriptions summarize the standard's wording; the survey order should use the standard's text.

What changed in Table A from 2021 to 2026?

The 2021 Table A had nineteen defined items and a blank item 20 for negotiated additions. The 2026 version keeps items 1 through 19 in the same order and adds a new item 20, the encroachment and conditions table. Negotiated additions move to item 21.

When item 20 is selected, the surveyor must summarize, in a table on the plat, the conditions observed in fieldwork or identified while preparing the survey. The list covers potential encroachments over boundary lines in both directions, potential encroachments into documented rights of way and easements, potential encroachments into setbacks when setback requirements were provided under item 6 or appear in recorded documents, physical access between adjoining parcels without a documented easement, and use of adjoining parcels by apparent occupants of the surveyed property without a documented easement.

Two limits are written into the item. The surveyor does not express a legal opinion or an opinion as to ownership, and the table may not be a complete list of every concern shown on the plat. Counsel still reads the face of the survey. The table tells them where to look first.

Which Table A items do lenders usually require?

There is no rule that a lender must require any Table A item. What lenders ask for comes from investor and agency requirements, from the title insurer's needs for the endorsements requested, and from counsel's standard survey requirements. Treat the following as observed practice and check your own program.

• Fannie Mae multifamily

  The Guide's survey guidance says an acceptable as-built survey should include items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6(a) and (b), 7(a), 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 18 and 20. It may omit item 1 for a lot and block legal description and item 10 if there are no party walls, and should be dated within 360 days before the security instrument records.
• HUD and other agency programs

  Item 12 exists for this case: governmental agency survey requirements, with HUD surveys named in the standard as an example. The agency's own requirements are supplied by the client.
• Conventional bank and life company loans

  Lender's counsel usually has a standard list close to the agency set, often adding items such as 7(b)(1), 7(c), 11 and 19 depending on property type and the endorsements requested. This varies by institution.
• Construction loans

  Vertical relief under item 5 and evidence of construction under item 16 matter more, and the lender may order a later as-built survey once improvements are complete.

How do Table A items affect title coverage?

The survey is what lets the insurer delete or narrow the general survey exception and replace it with specific exceptions for what the survey shows. Table A items add the facts the insurer and counsel use for the next questions: zoning compliance, access, contiguity of parcels, encroachments.

Zoning items 6(a) and 6(b) only work if someone provides the surveyor a zoning report or letter. The surveyor lists or draws what the report says; the surveyor does not research zoning. Item 3 has a similar limit: flood zone by graphic plotting only, which is a useful cross-check but does not replace the lender's flood zone determination. Ask the title officer which Table A items it needs for each endorsement on the pro forma before the survey is ordered, not after it is delivered.

Why does Table A item 11 come with a caveat?

Item 11 asks for evidence of underground utilities, from plans the client provides under 11(a) or from markings under a private locate request under 11(b). The standard includes a note to the client, insurer and lender: lacking excavation, the exact location of underground features cannot be accurately, completely and reliably depicted. It also notes that in some jurisdictions 811 locate requests from surveyors may be ignored or answered incompletely, and the surveyor must note how that affected the result.

Read item 11 results as evidence, not as a utility map. If a utility line crossing the property without an easement would change the credit view, the answer is further investigation, which the standard says may require excavation.

How do you order and track Table A items on a deal?

Write the selected items into the survey order using the 2026 numbering, list the parties the survey must be certified to, and send the zoning report and title commitment with the order so items 6 and 18 can be performed. Then put the survey on the diligence list as more than one line: order, draft received, counsel comments, title comments, final certified survey. The commercial real estate due diligence checklist shows where the survey sits among the other third-party reports.

Most survey problems at closing come from a missing item or a certification to the wrong lender entity, both of which are visible on the draft. The due diligence checklist template builds a starting list by property type. On a spreadsheet, the Table A selections, the draft comments and the final survey drift apart; the comparison of spreadsheets versus a shared checklist covers why. In Prodeal the survey line carries the order, the drafts and counsel's notes on one item, with an owner and a due date.