North Dakota UCC search showing weird results - anyone else having issues?

I tried both exact and broad search. The exact search misses some obvious matches, but the broad search gives me way too many irrelevant results. It's like there's no middle ground.

This is exactly why I always do multiple search variations. Try searching with and without middle initials, with LLC vs L.L.C., stuff like that.

Exactly! And when you're dealing with time-sensitive transactions you can't afford to second-guess whether you found all the filings.

Have you tried calling their office directly? Sometimes they can run searches on their end that catch things the online system misses.

Good idea, though their phone hours are pretty limited. Might be worth it for complex searches though.

That actually sounds really useful. Does it work with search results from different states or just specific ones?

Works with any state's UCC documents. You just upload whatever PDFs you have and it does the cross-checking. Saved me a ton of time on due diligence work.

Interesting, never heard of that service. Might check it out if these search issues keep happening.

That makes sense. Do you know if there's documentation anywhere about their specific indexing rules?

Check their filing guide on the Secretary of State website. It has some details about name indexing standards, though it's not super comprehensive.

Ha! Easy to say that now, but remember how long it used to take to get search results back? Sometimes weeks for a comprehensive search.

True, but at least you knew the results were complete. Now I never know if I'm missing something because of a search glitch.

The online systems are definitely more efficient when they work properly. The trick is knowing their limitations and working around them.

Good strategy. I should probably be more systematic about my search approach instead of just trying random variations.

Yeah, having a consistent process helps a lot. I keep a checklist of different search variations to try for each deal.

Some of them, yeah. A few UCC-1s from 2020 that should have continuations by now but I'm not seeing them linked properly.

Might be worth searching by the original filing number directly. Sometimes the cross-referencing between original filings and continuations gets messed up in the search results.

This happened to me too. The continuation was there but it wasn't showing up when I searched by debtor name, only when I searched the specific UCC filing number.

That's exactly what I'm worried about. How did you end up finding the missing amendments?

Had to do a bunch of manual cross-referencing. Used one of those document verification tools someone mentioned earlier - actually helped spot the inconsistencies.

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. Will try clearing cache and see if it makes a difference.

Yeah, I learned that the hard way after spending hours trying to figure out why my search results weren't updating.

That's reassuring at least. Which states have you found to be the most problematic for UCC searches?

In my experience, the older systems tend to be more finicky. Some of the newer state portals are much more forgiving with name variations.

Agreed. The states that have updated their systems recently seem to handle debtor name searches much better.

Definitely not just you! Seems like a pretty common issue that people don't talk about enough.

Yeah, it's one of those things everyone deals with but nobody mentions until someone brings it up.