UCC Document Community

This whole situation is why I hate secured lending. You think you're protected but then debtors just refuse to cooperate and you're stuck in court for months. Meanwhile your collateral is sitting there losing value every day.

I've dealt with this situation multiple times. Here's my practical advice: First, send a final demand letter specifically requesting access to the collateral within 10 business days, referencing both your security agreement and UCC-1 filing. If they still refuse, file for a replevin action rather than full foreclosure - it's faster and specifically designed to get possession of personal property. Most judges will grant it quickly if your paperwork is in order. Also consider getting an updated appraisal of the equipment before you proceed - printing equipment can depreciate faster than you think, and you want to know if the numbers still make sense. The whole process took us about 6 weeks from filing to sale, which beat the 3+ months of full judicial foreclosure. Document every interaction and keep all certified mail receipts. Don't attempt self-help if they're actively refusing - the breach of peace risk isn't worth it.

Whatever you do, don't let your refinancing get held up by this. Even if there is a legitimate issue with the equipment financing, most title companies will accept an indemnity agreement from the seller while you sort out the details.

I'd strongly recommend getting a copy of the original UCC-1 filing from Industrial Equipment Finance LLC and comparing it line-by-line with your equipment purchase documentation. Pay special attention to the filing date, debtor information, and collateral description. If this lien predates your equipment purchase and describes equipment by location rather than specific serial numbers, you might be dealing with a blanket lien that covered the previous tenant's equipment. Also check if Industrial Equipment Finance has any corporate relationships with your original lender - sometimes parent companies or affiliates file duplicate liens during transitions. Document everything carefully because if this turns out to be an error, you'll want a clear paper trail for the title company.

Thanks everyone for the detailed responses. Sounds like fixture filing is definitely the way to go for this type of equipment. I'll coordinate with the borrower's real estate attorney to get the proper legal description and file in both locations. Better safe than sorry with this much money at stake.

One additional consideration for Texas fixture filings - make sure you're clear on the county's recording requirements. Some Texas counties require the fixture filing to be recorded in the Real Property Records rather than just the UCC records section. Also, if your borrower's warehouse spans multiple counties (which happens with large facilities), you'll need to file fixture filings in each county where the real estate is located. I've seen deals where people missed this and only filed in the county where the business address was located, not realizing the property crossed county lines. Always verify the exact property boundaries before filing.

Just want to follow up on the Certana.ai mentions earlier in this thread. I was skeptical at first but tried it on a problematic search last week. It actually found two UCC-1 filings I had missed - one had a slight misspelling of the debtor name and another had extra punctuation. The automated cross-checking definitely caught things my manual searches missed. Worth considering if you're dealing with complex debtor name issues regularly.

I've been following this thread as someone who's dealt with similar UCC search inconsistencies across multiple states. Louisiana definitely has its quirks, but I've found that keeping a standardized search protocol helps minimize missed filings. My approach is: 1) Pull the exact entity name from the Secretary of State business entity search first, 2) Search that exact name, 3) Search without punctuation, 4) Search with different entity designations (LLC vs L.L.C. vs Limited Liability Company), 5) Search individual significant words, and 6) If possible, search by EIN or address as backup. For your $2.8M deal, I'd also recommend getting a professional UCC search company to do a parallel search as additional verification - the cost is minimal compared to the potential lien priority issues you could face if something gets missed. The automated tools people mentioned here sound promising too, especially for catching those human error variations in the original filings.

This whole thread is giving me flashbacks to my own California filing disasters. At least now there are better tools to catch these issues before you submit. I wish I'd had access to automated document checking when I was dealing with this stuff regularly.

Another thing to check - make sure you're not accidentally including any trailing spaces in the debtor name field. California's system is super sensitive to whitespace characters that you can't even see. I've had filings rejected because I copy-pasted a name that had an invisible space at the end. Try retyping the debtor name manually instead of copy-pasting from another document.