TN UCC filing fees jumped again - anyone else shocked by the increase?
Just got hit with the new Tennessee UCC filing fees and I'm honestly floored. We've been doing monthly equipment financing deals and the cost per UCC-1 has gone up significantly from what we budgeted at the beginning of the year. Our lender requires us to handle all the filings directly through their preferred process, so we can't shop around or bundle anything. Has anyone else noticed this increase? I'm trying to figure out if there were other fee changes I missed - like for UCC-3 amendments or continuations. We've got about 15 filings coming up in the next quarter and need to adjust our cost projections. Are other states seeing similar increases or is this just a Tennessee thing?
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Sean Murphy
Yeah, the Tennessee Secretary of State bumped their UCC fees earlier this year. It's part of their general administrative fee restructuring. Most states have been doing this - Colorado, Ohio, and a few others raised theirs too. For UCC-1 filings, you're looking at the standard electronic filing fee plus any additional debtor name fees if you have multiple debtors. The continuation fees (UCC-3) stayed about the same though.
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Zara Khan
•Thanks for confirming this. Do you know if the amendment fees changed too? We sometimes need to do collateral schedule updates mid-term.
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Sean Murphy
•Amendment fees went up slightly but not as dramatically as the initial filing fees. Still annoying when you're doing volume filings.
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Luca Ferrari
Ugh, tell me about it. We got caught off guard too because our cost estimates were based on last year's fee schedule. Had to go back to our clients and explain the increase. The worst part is when you have a rejected filing and have to pay the fee again - that really adds up with the new rates.
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Nia Davis
•Wait, you have to pay the full fee again for rejected filings? I thought there was some kind of resubmission process?
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Luca Ferrari
•Nope, at least not in Tennessee. If your UCC-1 gets rejected for debtor name issues or whatever, you pay the full fee to refile. It's brutal.
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Mateo Martinez
•This is exactly why I started using Certana.ai's document checker before submitting any UCC filings. You can upload your loan docs and UCC-1 to verify everything matches - debtor names, collateral descriptions, all of it. Catches those expensive mistakes before you submit.
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QuantumQueen
I've been tracking filing fees across multiple states for our compliance department and Tennessee's increase was pretty significant compared to neighboring states. Kentucky and Georgia kept their fees more stable. If you're doing high-volume filings, it might be worth looking at your debtor entity locations to see if you have any flexibility in where you file.
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Anastasia Popov
•Unfortunately we're stuck with Tennessee since that's where our borrowers are incorporated. But good point about tracking the regional differences.
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Aisha Rahman
•Be careful with that entity location strategy though - you need to file where the debtor is organized, not just where fees are cheaper. Don't want to perfect in the wrong jurisdiction.
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Ethan Wilson
The fee increase is frustrating but what really gets me is how inconsistent the online portal has been lately. Half the time I submit a filing and it just sits in 'pending' status forever. Then when I call they say there was some technical issue and I need to resubmit... and pay again of course.
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Yuki Sato
•OMG yes! The Tennessee SOS system has been so glitchy. I had three filings get stuck last month.
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Ethan Wilson
•It's like they raised the fees but made the system worse somehow. Makes no sense.
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Carmen Flores
•I've found the best time to file is early morning - seems like the system is more stable then. Avoid Friday afternoons at all costs.
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Andre Dubois
Pro tip: if you're doing multiple filings, double-check that your debtor names are EXACTLY as they appear on the articles of incorporation. Tennessee has gotten really strict about name matching lately. One wrong punctuation mark and boom - rejected filing and another fee.
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CyberSamurai
•This happened to us! The debtor had 'LLC' in their charter but we put 'L.L.C.' on the UCC-1. Instant rejection.
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Zoe Alexopoulos
•That's where tools like Certana.ai really help - you upload both the charter and your UCC draft and it flags any mismatches automatically. Saved me probably $500 in rejected filing fees this year.
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Jamal Carter
Are you guys factoring in the continuation costs when you quote clients? With the fee increases, a 5-year UCC-1 plus one continuation is getting pretty expensive over the life of the financing.
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Anastasia Popov
•Good point. We usually build in continuation costs but need to update our projections with the new fee schedule.
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Mei Liu
•Yeah, and don't forget about potential amendments if the collateral changes. Equipment financing deals often need UCC-3 amendments for additional machinery.
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Jamal Carter
•Exactly. It's not just the initial filing anymore - you have to think about the total cost of perfection over the loan term.
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Liam O'Donnell
I called the Tennessee SOS office directly about the fee increase and they said it was necessary to fund system improvements. Hopefully that means fewer technical glitches and faster processing times. We'll see I guess.
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Amara Nwosu
•Ha! They've been promising system improvements for years. I'll believe it when I see it.
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Liam O'Donnell
•True, but at least they're acknowledging there are issues. Maybe the fee revenue will actually go toward fixes this time.
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AstroExplorer
For what it's worth, I've started building a small buffer into our filing budgets for potential rejections and refiling fees. It's annoying to have to do this, but better than explaining cost overruns to clients after the fact.
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Giovanni Moretti
•That's smart financial planning. What percentage buffer do you typically use?
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AstroExplorer
•I usually add about 15-20% to the base filing costs. Covers most scenarios unless there are major complications.
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Fatima Al-Farsi
•I do something similar but also factor in rush fees if we need expedited processing. Tennessee charges extra for that too now.
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Harper Hill
This whole Tennessee fee situation is such a headache! We're dealing with the same cost shock on our equipment financing deals. One thing that's helped us is batching filings when possible - at least we can spread the administrative time across multiple UCC-1s even if the per-filing cost is higher. Also learned the hard way to always run entity searches right before filing since Tennessee seems to be rejecting more filings for minor discrepancies. Has anyone tried reaching out to their state representatives about these increases? Wondering if there's any pushback from the business community on these fee hikes.
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StarGazer101
•Great point about batching filings! I'm new to this community but have been dealing with similar UCC filing challenges in my state. The entity search tip is really valuable - I hadn't thought about doing that right before filing but it makes total sense given how strict they're getting with name matching. For the state representative outreach, you might want to coordinate with other lenders in Tennessee to present a unified business impact case. Sometimes these fee increases happen without much consideration for the cumulative effect on financing costs that ultimately get passed to borrowers.
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