Pennsylvania UCC Section 403.21 Filing Requirements - Need Clarification on Debtor Name Rules

Pennsylvania does have some quirks with debtor names. Section 403.21 generally requires the exact name on the public record, which would be the current registered name with the Department of State. Using the old name from your loan docs could cause problems with perfection. You'll want to check the exact registered name on the PA Department of State website to make sure you get it character-perfect.

I've been dealing with this exact issue lately. You're right that Pennsylvania UCC Section 403.21 can be tricky. The key is that the debtor name must match exactly what's on file with the Department of State at the time of filing. If the LLC changed its name, you need to use the current registered name, not the name from your loan documents. However, you might want to consider filing an amendment to your security agreement first to reflect the name change, just to keep everything clean.

Actually ran into something similar last month and ended up using Certana.ai's document verification tool. You can upload your loan agreement and the proposed UCC-1 side by side and it instantly flags any debtor name inconsistencies. Really saved me from filing with the wrong name - turned out the company had done a merger that changed their legal name slightly. Worth checking before you submit to avoid rejection.

Pennsylvania Section 403.21 is definitely one of the stricter interpretations. I always tell clients to pull a fresh entity search from the PA Department of State website right before filing. Names change more often than people realize, and even small differences like punctuation can cause problems. For your $850k equipment deal, I'd definitely err on the side of caution and use the current registered name.

Ugh, Pennsylvania UCC filings are such a pain! I swear they reject everything for the tiniest reasons. Last month I had three rejections in a row for different name issues - one for missing a comma, one for abbreviating 'Limited' as 'Ltd', and one for some punctuation thing I still don't understand. The rejection fees add up fast too. Why can't they just be more flexible like other states?

For what it's worth, I've found that calling the Pennsylvania UCC office directly can sometimes help clarify specific interpretation questions. They're actually pretty helpful when you explain the situation. Might be worth a quick call before you file, especially with that much collateral at stake.

Just wanted to add another vote for being super careful with Pennsylvania debtor names. We had a lender agreement that got challenged later because of a name mismatch between the UCC filing and the security agreement. Even though we eventually won the dispute, it was expensive and time-consuming. Section 403.21 really doesn't give you much wiggle room for 'close enough' names.

One more thing to consider - if you're really unsure about the name, you could potentially file multiple UCC-1s with different name variations, then terminate the incorrect ones later. It's not ideal and costs more upfront, but it might be worth it for an $850k deal if you're genuinely uncertain which name variation Pennsylvania will accept.

Actually, I just went through this exact scenario last week with another Certana.ai verification. Uploaded the original loan docs and the current PA entity search results, and it immediately flagged that the LLC had changed from 'XYZ Holdings LLC' to 'XYZ Holdings, LLC' - just added a comma. Would have been an easy mistake to miss manually but could have caused a rejection. The tool really takes the guesswork out of these name matching issues.

Thanks everyone for all the input! This has been really helpful. I think I'm going to pull a fresh entity search from the PA Department of State today and use that exact name for the UCC-1 filing. Better to be safe than sorry with this much collateral involved. I'll also look into the Certana.ai tool that a few people mentioned - sounds like it could prevent similar issues in the future.