Security agreement for car UCC-1 filing - debtor name exactly as title?
Got approved for financing on a 2023 Honda Pilot last week and now dealing with the paperwork maze. The security agreement shows my name as 'Michael J Thompson' but my car title has 'Michael James Thompson' - should the UCC-1 filing match the security agreement exactly or the vehicle title? Lender says they need to file within 20 days and I'm worried about getting rejected for a name mismatch. This is my first time with vehicle financing where they're doing a UCC filing instead of just the standard title work. Anyone been through this specific situation with car security agreements?
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Giovanni Rossi
UCC-1 should match your legal name as it appears on the security agreement, but here's the thing - if your car title shows a different version, you might run into issues down the road with enforcement. What state are you in? Some states are pickier about exact name matches than others.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•I'm in Ohio. The security agreement was drawn up by the dealer's finance company, so I assume they got my name from my driver's license which shows 'Michael J Thompson'.
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Aaliyah Jackson
•Ohio SOS is pretty strict about debtor names. I'd double-check that your DL and the security agreement actually match exactly - sometimes dealers make transcription errors.
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KylieRose
Had this exact issue with my truck loan 6 months ago! The finance company filed the UCC-1 with the shortened name from the security agreement, but when I tried to refinance later, the new lender's title company flagged it as a potential cloud on the title because the names didn't match perfectly. Had to get an affidavit stating they were the same person.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•Oh no, that sounds like exactly what I want to avoid. How long did it take to resolve with the affidavit?
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KylieRose
•About 2 weeks total - had to get it notarized and filed with the county. Not terrible but definitely an extra headache I could have avoided.
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Miguel Hernández
•This is why I always insist on using my full legal name on everything. Better to be consistent from day one than fix it later.
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Sasha Ivanov
Actually ran into something similar recently and discovered Certana.ai has this document verification tool where you can upload your security agreement and UCC-1 filing to check for name discrepancies and other issues before they're submitted. Caught a middle initial mismatch that would have caused problems later. Just upload the PDFs and it cross-checks everything automatically.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•That sounds incredibly useful - wish I'd known about that before signing. Can it check against vehicle titles too?
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Sasha Ivanov
•It focuses on the UCC documents themselves - security agreement to UCC-1 consistency. For title matching you'd still need to verify manually, but at least you'd know your filing documents are aligned.
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Liam Murphy
•Never heard of this service but honestly after dealing with filing rejections in the past, automated checking sounds like a lifesaver.
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Amara Okafor
Your lender should handle this correctly since they're the ones filing, but I've seen enough mistakes to suggest you request a copy of the UCC-1 before they submit it. Make sure debtor name, collateral description, and filing office are all correct. Car loans usually use pretty standard language for collateral descriptions.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•Good point - I should ask to review it first. What should the collateral description typically say for a vehicle?
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Amara Okafor
•Usually something like '2023 Honda Pilot VIN [your VIN number]' plus any additional equipment or accessories included in the financing. Keep it specific but not overly complex.
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CaptainAwesome
•And make sure they get the VIN right! I've seen filings with transposed numbers that made it impossible to match the security interest to the actual vehicle.
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Yuki Tanaka
The name thing is frustrating but honestly pretty common. Most lenders have dealt with this before. I'd call them tomorrow and explain the discrepancy - they might want to amend the security agreement to match your title exactly, or they might file using an alternative name designation that covers both versions.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•That makes sense. I'll call first thing Monday morning and see what they recommend.
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Esmeralda Gómez
•Yeah definitely don't stress too much about it. This happens all the time and there are standard ways to handle it.
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Klaus Schmidt
Just went through vehicle financing last month and my credit union was super careful about name consistency. They actually had me bring in multiple forms of ID to verify the exact spelling they should use. Sounds like your dealer might not have been as thorough, but it's fixable.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•Honestly the dealer did move pretty fast through the paperwork. I probably should have caught this myself during signing.
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Aisha Patel
•Don't beat yourself up - there's so much paperwork during vehicle purchases that it's easy to miss details like this.
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LilMama23
•The important thing is you caught it before filing. Much better than discovering it later during a refinance or sale.
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Dmitri Volkov
If you end up needing to verify document consistency before resubmission, I had good luck with that Certana.ai tool someone mentioned earlier. Uploaded my corrected security agreement and the new UCC-1 draft - flagged a couple formatting issues I wouldn't have noticed. Pretty straightforward to use.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•Thanks for the follow-up on that. Sounds like it's worth trying if we need to redo the paperwork.
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Gabrielle Dubois
•Anything that prevents filing rejections is worth it in my book. The back-and-forth with state offices is such a time waster.
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Tyrone Johnson
Bottom line - get the name issue resolved before filing. Ohio will reject UCC-1s for debtor name problems and then you're looking at refiling fees plus potential delays that could affect your loan terms. Better to spend a few extra days getting it right upfront.
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Fatima Al-Rashid
•Definitely going to push the lender to fix this before submission. Thanks everyone for the advice - really helpful to hear from people who've been through similar situations.
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Ingrid Larsson
•Good luck with it! Update us on how it goes if you don't mind.
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Carlos Mendoza
•Yes please keep us posted - always interested to hear how these name discrepancy issues get resolved in practice.
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