Chicago UCC search showing weird results - debtor name variations causing issues

This is why I hate doing UCC searches manually. So many ways to miss something critical.

Right, and if we miss an existing senior lien, our security interest could be worthless. The stakes are too high for guesswork.

What variations did you end up trying? I need a better system for this.

I tried: full legal name, name without LLC, name with commas, name without commas, abbreviated versions, and even searched by the registered agent name. Found hits under variations I never would have thought of.

How does that work exactly? Do you just upload the incorporation docs?

Yeah, you upload the charter documents and any UCC filings you've found, then it flags inconsistencies in debtor names across all the documents. Really helpful for catching those subtle variations that manual searches miss.

That sounds like it could prevent a lot of headaches. Manual cross-checking is so error-prone.

Good point about DBAs. I forgot about that angle.

So there's no standardized way the system handles company suffixes like LLC, Corp, Inc?

Nope, it's all literal text matching. "ABC Corp" and "ABC Corporation" are treated as completely different entities by the search engine.

Even with the SOS filing, you still have to account for human error when the original UCC was filed.

Exactly. I've seen UCC-1s where they spelled the debtor name wrong, or used an old version of the company name from before an amendment.

Oh god yes. Foreign LLCs with accented characters or apostrophes. The search system handles those terribly.

I had one where the company name had an ampersand (&) but the UCC filing spelled it out as "and". Never would have found it without trying both.

That's a good system. I should be more methodical about it instead of just winging it.

I do something similar but also search by the secured party name to see all their filings, then look for the debtor that way.

That's actually really useful. I've seen deals where the continuation referenced the wrong initial filing number and created a gap in perfection.

Yeah, those filing number mismatches can be deal killers if they create uncertainty about which collateral is actually secured.

It's probably because UCC searches need to be precise for legal purposes. False positives could be as problematic as false negatives.

True, but they could at least suggest similar names or variations like Google does.

I usually use the Illinois SOS portal directly. Should I be cross-checking with commercial services too?

It's worth doing for high-value deals. Sometimes the commercial services pick up filings that the state system misses or displays differently.

I've seen that too - the state and commercial databases sometimes show different results even though they're supposedly pulling from the same source.

Good point. Better to over-search than miss a critical filing. Thanks everyone for the advice - this has been really helpful.

Agreed. The extra time spent on thorough searching is nothing compared to the cost of missing a senior lien.