After filing a UCC Financing Statement or Amendment, a conscientious secured party will request a search to reflect their filing. A search to reflect is a UCC debtor search of the office where you filed a UCC document, performed after your filing posts to the index. UCC experts and public records professionals agree that a search to reflect is a critical piece of the due diligence process.
If you are not routinely performing a search to reflect after filing a UCC, consider the following:
A Search to Reflect Confirms Proper Indexing
The indexing of UCC filings is still largely a manual process and errors do occur. A search to reflect will confirm how your filing is entered on the state’s searchable UCC index and reveal if the filing office committed any typographical errors when indexing your UCC filing. Data entry errors in the debtor name are of particular concern as they can cause a filing to be difficult to locate in the public record and could put a secured party at risk.
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A Search to Reflect Verifies Priority Position
Even if you performed a comprehensive pre-funding UCC search, another creditor could have filed a UCC or other lien naming your debtor after you performed your search, or a lien could have been missed on the initial search effort. A search to reflect will verify your priority position to collect, relative to other creditors who may hold a claim in the same collateral.
CLAS UCC eZFILE® users enjoy a simplified search to reflect process. Users can establish global defaults to request a search to reflect automatically with every filing. CLAS will then monitor the filing office index and initiate a search to reflect once the index date is sufficient to capture the user’s filing. Our highly skilled UCC department will also review the search and work with the state to correct any indexing errors on the client’s behalf.
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For informational purposes only; content does not constitute legal advice.