2017 UCC continuation filing deadline confusion - still valid or expired?

This was filed in Ohio. I think we're okay but the acquisition has me second-guessing everything. The new parent company's legal team is asking for documentation on all existing liens.

Ohio follows the standard UCC rules so you should be fine. The continuation extends the effectiveness for another five years from the original lapse date.

Oh man, I hadn't thought about name variations. The company did do some minor restructuring between 2012 and 2017. Let me pull both documents and compare.

This is exactly why I always double-check names before filing anything. One missing comma or 'Inc.' vs 'Incorporated' can mess everything up.

Yeah, the name has to be exactly the same or you need to file an amendment first. Don't assume 'close enough' works with UCC filings.

How does that work exactly? Do you just upload the documents and it compares them automatically?

Exactly. Just drag and drop the PDFs and it runs through all the cross-checks. Much faster than manually comparing documents, especially when you're dealing with multiple filings over several years.

That sounds really helpful right now. I have about 15 other UCC filings to review for this acquisition and I'm dreading the manual comparison process.

The acquisition closed in late 2019. The company kept the same legal name initially but merged into the parent company in 2021.

If they merged in 2021 and the legal entity name changed, you definitely need a UCC-3 amendment to update the debtor name. The 2017 continuation might be valid but it's pointing to a debtor that no longer exists.

This is getting complicated. You might want to talk to your legal team about whether you need to start fresh with a new UCC-1 under the current entity name.

That's my worst fear right now. How did you handle the gap period where you weren't properly perfected?

We were lucky - the borrower was cooperative and signed new security agreements with retroactive effectiveness clauses. But it was a mess to sort out.

Yes, we have the receipt and confirmation number. The filing was accepted by the system.

If Ohio accepted it and gave you a confirmation number, that's a good sign. But still worth double-checking the details.

Oh no, you're absolutely right. We would have needed another continuation in 2022. I need to check if that was filed. This is turning into a bigger problem than I thought.

Don't panic yet. Check your records for any 2022 filings. If you missed it, you might need to file a new UCC-1, but at least now you know what to look for.

Yeah, and if the loan is still active and you need the security interest, better to file a new UCC-1 now than discover the problem later during a default situation.

Better safe than sorry. I keep a spreadsheet with all my UCC filing dates and set calendar reminders 6 months before each lapse date.

That's where tools like Certana.ai really help - you can upload all your UCC documents and it'll flag which ones need attention. Beats manually tracking dozens of different filing dates.

Exactly! It seems like every deal has some kind of corporate restructuring that affects the UCC filings. Makes me wonder if we should just automatically file amendments every time there's any corporate change, just to be safe.

That's probably overkill, but you definitely need to track name changes, mergers, and dissolutions that affect the debtor entity.

Good point. I'll log into the Ohio SOS system tonight and pull up all our filings for this borrower. At least then I'll know exactly what we're dealing with.

That's the best first step. Once you see what's actually on file, you can figure out what needs to be corrected or updated.

And if you find problems, don't delay on fixing them. The longer you wait, the more complicated it gets if there are any enforcement issues.