What you file when the certificate is lost, stolen, mutilated, indecipherable or destroyed. Alabama gives an owner two routes and no downloadable form for either: the Department's public title portal, where the application is completed on screen, uploaded and paid for; or any designated agent, who will produce one from the title system at the counter. The fee is the same $15.00 that every other title transaction costs, and it is non-refundable.
Written against MVT 12-1 (not published online), issued under Code of Ala. 1975, Section 32-8-43; Ala. Admin. Code r. 810-5-75-.15. Order the replacement before you advertise the car, not after you have taken a deposit. A buyer standing in your driveway while you explain that the certificate is somewhere in a house move from 2019 is a buyer who renegotiates, and the two weeks the Department needs are two weeks whatever anybody offers.
There is no download link for the MVT 12-1 here because there is not one anywhere - the Motor Vehicle Division does not publish it. The card below explains where it does come from.
There is no completed MVT 12-1 on this page because the Alabama Department of Revenue publishes no blank one. Rule 810-5-75-.15 names the form and then describes only two ways to reach it - the Department's public title portal, where the application is filled in on screen and electronically uploaded and submitted for payment, or a designated agent, who must use the title system provided by the department. Neither produces a downloadable PDF, and drawing a layout for a document we have not been given would be an invention rather than a walkthrough. What the list above can do is tell you who is allowed to apply and what has to travel with the application.
| On the form | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Who may apply | The first lienholder if there is one, and if not the owner or legal representative of the owner named in the certificate, as shown by the records of the department. Nobody else, however obviously the car is theirs. |
| Vehicle and owner identification | The details the Department already holds - the vehicle and the owner as its record has them - which is what makes this an application rather than a declaration. |
| Supporting documents | The Alabama title itself, unless it is the thing that has been lost, stolen, mutilated or destroyed; and where somebody other than the owner is signing, powers of attorney, letters testamentary, letters of administration, letters of guardianship, letters of conservatorship, trust agreements or court orders. |
| Lien release, where one is recorded | If a lienholder is of record on the title, an authorised representative of the lienholder must complete the application unless a separate lien release is provided under rule 810-5-75-.21. |
| Mailing instruction | The replacement is posted to the first lienholder named on it, or if none, to the owner. Sending it anywhere else needs the application signed and dated by the owner or the owner's authorised representative. |
| The legend the new certificate carries | Printed on every replacement: This is a replacement certificate of title and may be subject to the rights of a person under the original certificate. |
There is no MVT 12-1 to read: the Motor Vehicle Division does not publish it, so nothing on this page describes its contents beyond what the agency itself says about it — that is here — and what is on the Alabama Department of Revenue, Motor Vehicle Division pages. This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.
Back to all Alabama seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Alabama involves.