Confused About State of Ohio UCC Filing Fees - What Am I Missing?

Thanks! So continuations are also $40 electronic/$50 paper? That's helpful to know for the 5-year planning.

Yep exactly. And amendments are the same fee too, whether you're adding collateral or changing debtor info.

This is equipment financing so no real estate involved, but good to know for future reference.

Fixture filings in Ohio are still $40 electronic but you have to file them in the county where the real estate is located, not with the Secretary of State.

Debtor name issues are definitely something I worry about. How does that tool work exactly?

You upload your charter documents and UCC-1 and it cross-checks everything automatically. Shows you exactly where names don't match or if there are formatting issues that might cause rejections.

That sounds useful but I'm skeptical of automated tools for legal documents. How accurate is it really?

Good point, I should factor that into the total cost estimate for my client.

Search fees vary depending on how many pages of results you get. The $15 is for the basic search but if there are lots of results you might pay more for additional pages.

Electronic filings usually process within 24-48 hours in my experience. Paper filings take much longer.

These were electronic! Maybe I caught them during a busy period or something.

I've noticed Ohio can be slow around month-end when lots of continuations are due. Probably just bad timing.

Terminations are the same $40/$50 fee structure as other UCC-3 filings unfortunately.

Ugh, that's annoying. Some states don't charge to terminate liens.

That's reassuring to hear from someone with long experience. Any other Ohio-specific quirks I should know about?

Just make sure your debtor names match exactly what's on their corporate records. Ohio rejects filings pretty quickly for name mismatches.

This is exactly why I started using that Certana tool I mentioned earlier. Ohio is strict about name matching.

It's $40 for the initial UCC-1 and then $40 for the continuation before it lapses. So yes, $80 over 5 years plus any amendments you might need.

ok thanks, trying to budget this stuff for my boss

Interesting, I hadn't thought about partial releases. Good to know they charge the full amendment fee.

Makes sense though - they still have to process and record the change to the filing.

Smart approach. I think I'll quote $50 for the initial filing to give myself some cushion.

Exactly, and if nothing goes wrong you look like a hero for coming in under budget.

I do the same thing. Clients never complain about getting charged less than quoted, but they definitely complain about surprise additional fees.

Good to know those tools actually work. I might look into that for future filings.

Yeah Certana.ai has definitely saved me more in rejected filing fees than it costs. Worth checking out if you do regular UCC work.

@GalaxyGuardian Welcome to UCC work! One thing I'd add to Connor's excellent advice is to always get a current certificate of good standing or equivalent corporate document before doing your searches and filings. That gives you the debtor's exact legal name as it appears in state records, which is what Ohio will expect to see on your UCC-1. I've seen too many filings get rejected because someone used a "doing business as" name or an outdated corporate name. The small cost of getting that certificate upfront can save you multiple rejected filing fees down the road.

This is really helpful advice! I hadn't thought about the punctuation variations potentially returning different results. That's exactly the kind of detail that could trip up someone new like me. I'll definitely budget for multiple searches rather than trying to save a few dollars and potentially missing something important. Better to be thorough upfront than deal with priority issues later.