UCC Document Community

The bottom line is that whether you use one filing or multiple filings, the most important thing is ensuring proper perfection of your security interests. I'd recommend having an experienced UCC attorney review your approach before filing, especially with multi-state operations involved.

As someone who's handled quite a few mixed collateral transactions, I'd strongly recommend going with one comprehensive UCC-1 filing. The key is crafting a collateral description that clearly covers both the pledged securities and the equipment/inventory without creating confusion. I typically use language like "all personal property of debtor including but not limited to equipment, inventory, and investment property as more particularly described in Security Agreement dated [date] and Pledge Agreement dated [date]." This approach gives you broad coverage while being specific enough to avoid rejection. Just make absolutely sure your debtor name is identical across all documents - that's where most rejections happen. With multi-state operations, you'll also want to confirm you're filing in the correct jurisdiction for each type of collateral.

Bottom line - UCC financing is just a tool that makes business lending work efficiently. It protects lenders while giving businesses access to capital they need to grow. The paperwork might seem intimidating at first but it's really just creating a clear record of the lending arrangement.

One additional consideration for equipment financing - make sure you understand what happens if you want to upgrade or replace the equipment before the loan is paid off. Some lenders are flexible about substituting collateral, while others require you to pay off the existing loan first. It's worth asking about this upfront, especially with manufacturing equipment that might need upgrading as technology advances.

OP - sounds like you have both personal property (equipment) and real property (facility) as collateral. The lender can pursue both tracks simultaneously. UCC sale for equipment will be fast, foreclosure for real estate will be slow. Different notice periods, different sale procedures, different redemption rights. Get legal help immediately.

The key difference is speed and legal framework. UCC Article 9 governs your equipment (personal property) - this can move incredibly fast, sometimes with just 10 days notice depending on your security agreement terms. Regular foreclosure is for your facility (real property) under state mortgage law - this typically takes months with more procedural protections. Your lender likely has separate security interests in both and can pursue them simultaneously or sequentially. Given you have equity in the equipment ($180k value vs $145k debt), pay close attention to how they conduct any UCC sale - they must be commercially reasonable or you can challenge it. Document everything about their notice and sale process. Time is critical here since UCC sales move so fast.

Make sure to check if any of the storage facilities have blanket liens or other creditor interests in stored goods. Some storage companies have policies about defaulted rent creating possessory liens that could complicate your security interest.

Based on your description, I'd strongly recommend filing UCC-3 amendments to add the storage facility addresses. While "all inventory now owned or hereafter acquired" is broad language, the fact that your original filing specified the primary business address creates ambiguity about whether the storage locations are covered. For $75k worth of collateral, the amendment filing costs are minimal compared to the risk of an unperfected security interest. Also consider adding language to your loan documents requiring borrower notification before moving inventory to new locations - this will help you stay ahead of these issues in the future.

For what it's worth, I've started building a small buffer into our filing budgets for potential rejections and refiling fees. It's annoying to have to do this, but better than explaining cost overruns to clients after the fact.

This whole Tennessee fee situation is such a headache! We're dealing with the same cost shock on our equipment financing deals. One thing that's helped us is batching filings when possible - at least we can spread the administrative time across multiple UCC-1s even if the per-filing cost is higher. Also learned the hard way to always run entity searches right before filing since Tennessee seems to be rejecting more filings for minor discrepancies. Has anyone tried reaching out to their state representatives about these increases? Wondering if there's any pushback from the business community on these fee hikes.