Orange Beach, Ala. – (OBA) – A avid boater himself, Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, at first wasn’t too keen on the idea of requiring boats to have a title in Alabama.

“I helped kill this bill or one very similar to it my first two years in the Legislature,” Elliott said. “I was looking at more as more government, what’s going on, why do we want to title these things, we’ve got registration. I along with a bunch of other folks didn’t want to do that.”

Beginning in 2024 all new boats purchased in Alabama meeting certain criteria will have to have a title. Any new boat under 18 feet and a motor of less than 75 horsepower will not be required to have a title. The exception is jetskis which are typically more than 75 horsepower but they will have to be titled.

“Anything over 26 feet can be documented and if it is documented then it doesn’t have to have a title,” Elliott said.

Boats already registered in Alabama do not have to be titled but the owners can choose to have a title if they prefer.

Hurricane Sally helped change Elliott’s mind on titles for boats and he authored the Uniform Certificate of Titles for Vessels Act passed during the 2021 legislative session.

“In particular, we ran into issues with derelict vessels and not knowing who owned the boats,” Elliott said. “In Alabama, you don’t have titles on boats. You have a registration of who registered it last. But you may have a boat sitting in a marina three years or on a trailer that got blown into the water. You know who registered it last but not who owned it.”

Elliott said while researching the titling of boats he ran across two other problems that requiring boat titles will help solve – theft of boats and interest rates on loans for boats.

“You’ve got a bill of sale that you’ve scratched out but there’s no title,” Elliott said. “And the more I dug on it that was a problem. If you’ve never had a title on it, you get a boat that’s stolen, you go over to Mississippi or Florida and you title it and that’s the first time it’s been titled.”

The ease of stealing jetskis was another reason Elliott said they were included in the criteria for requiring a title.

“The reason we did that is those are the things, jetskis, that get stolen a lot,” he said.

A title will also give banks and other lenders more leverage when loaning for boat purchases which lessens their risk.

“The price of boats has changed and they are more expensive now which means most folks have a loan on their boat,” Elliott said. “The interest rate for my constituents paying in Alabama were higher than they were in areas with titling because that title gives that bank or credit union some security in that asset in their collateral. It lowers the cost of financing a boat if you’ve got a title because the collateral is more secure.”

There are 34 states that currently title boats to some degree and Alabama will be number 35. There are only seven states that require a separate title on outboard motors. Alabama will not require a title on outboard motors.

There are 40 states that require titles on trailers, Alabama is not one of them and there are no plans to title trailers in Alabama.