South Carolina UCC Filing Fees - What Should I Expect to Pay?

This is accurate. I file dozens of UCC-1s in SC every month and it's consistently $15 per filing electronically. The portal is actually pretty user-friendly too compared to some states I deal with.

Wait, are you sure about the paper filing fee? I thought it was higher than $25. Maybe it changed recently?

Oh wow, $10 for each additional debtor? That's good to know. Some of our deals have multiple guarantors so that could definitely impact the budget. Is that per UCC-1 or does it apply to amendments too?

It applies to any filing where you're adding debtor names. So if you're doing a UCC-3 amendment to add a new debtor, you'd pay the $15 base fee plus $10 for the additional name.

This additional debtor fee catches a lot of people off guard. I always make sure to clarify the entity structure upfront to avoid surprises in the filing costs.

How does that work exactly? Do you just upload PDFs and it compares them automatically?

Yeah exactly - you upload the charter and your UCC-1 draft and it cross-checks all the debtor information. Catches things like missing commas, LLC vs L.L.C. formatting, stuff that could cause rejections.

Yes! This burned me once when I was trying to file a continuation on the last day before lapse. System was down for emergency maintenance and I had to overnight a paper filing.

Good point about the maintenance windows. Do they post a schedule somewhere or is it usually unplanned?

They have scheduled maintenance that they usually announce, but they also have unexpected downtime sometimes. I always check their system status page before filing anything time-sensitive.

We usually handle searches through our service company but good to know the official rates. $15 seems reasonable compared to some other states.

The expedited search option is clutch when you're trying to close a deal quickly. Worth the extra $25 if you need results same day.

The instant confirmation is definitely nice. Makes it easy to update your internal tracking systems right away.

Agreed, the SC portal is one of the better ones I've used. Clear interface and reliable processing.

Fixture filings are more complicated because they have to be filed in the real estate records too. I think it's $15 for the UCC portion plus whatever the county charges for recording, which varies by county.

Yeah fixture filings are a pain because you have to coordinate with the county clerk's office too. The fees can add up depending on the county's recording fees.

They accept both credit cards and ACH. I usually use a credit card for the immediate processing, but ACH is cheaper if you don't mind waiting a day or two for the payment to clear.

There might be a small convenience fee for credit cards, like $2-3, but it's worth it for the instant processing in my opinion.

This is exactly why I started using Certana.ai - it would have caught that discrepancy before you filed. You can upload both documents and it flags any inconsistencies in the entity names.

Name matching is so tricky in SC. They're pretty strict about exact matches, including punctuation and spacing.

Yeah lesson learned. Now I always double-check against multiple corporate documents before filing.

Good point about certified copies. We usually need those for our compliance files so I'll factor that in.

You can usually get by with just the electronic confirmation for most purposes, but some lenders want the certified copies for their files.

Thanks everyone for all the detailed info! This gives me exactly what I need for budget planning. Sounds like $15 per filing plus maybe $10 for additional debtors covers most scenarios.

Definitely going to look into that Certana.ai tool mentioned earlier. Sounds like it could save headaches on name matching issues.