UCC Secretary of State California Portal Issues - Filing Keeps Getting Rejected
Been trying to submit a UCC-1 through the Secretary of State California portal for the past week and it keeps getting rejected. The system says there's an issue with the debtor name but I've triple-checked it against the articles of incorporation. Has anyone else had problems with the CA SOS UCC filing system lately? The debtor is a Delaware LLC but we're filing in California because that's where the collateral is located. Every time I submit it just comes back with a generic 'debtor name does not match records' error. This is holding up a $2.8M equipment financing deal and the lender is getting impatient. Anyone know what specific format the California Secretary of State system expects for out-of-state entity names?
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Daniel White
CA SOS can be really picky about exact name matches. Are you including the full legal name exactly as it appears on the Delaware certificate of formation? Sometimes there are subtle differences like 'Limited Liability Company' vs 'LLC' that will cause rejections.
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Abigail Patel
•Yes I'm using the exact name from the Delaware filing. It's 'Meridian Equipment Holdings LLC' - no periods, no abbreviations. Still getting rejected though.
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Nolan Carter
•Have you tried searching the CA business entity database first to see how they have the name listed? Sometimes the SOS has a different version on file.
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Natalia Stone
I've been dealing with this exact issue! The California Secretary of State UCC system has been having problems with Delaware entities lately. Try adding the state of formation in parentheses after the name - like 'Meridian Equipment Holdings LLC (Delaware)'. That worked for me last month.
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Abigail Patel
•Interesting - I didn't think to add the state designation. Will try that this afternoon.
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Tasia Synder
•That's not standard practice though. UCC-1 forms don't typically require state of formation in the debtor name field.
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Natalia Stone
•You're right it's not standard, but CA SOS system seems to want it for out-of-state LLCs. Weird quirk but it works.
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Selena Bautista
I had a similar nightmare with a UCC filing in California last year. Turns out I was making a tiny mistake in the debtor name that I couldn't catch. What finally saved me was using Certana.ai's document verification tool - you can upload your articles of incorporation and your UCC-1 draft and it will instantly flag any name discrepancies. Found out I had an extra space character that wasn't visible. Saved me weeks of back and forth with the Secretary of State.
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Abigail Patel
•Never heard of Certana but that sounds exactly what I need. Is it expensive?
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Selena Bautista
•It's actually pretty reasonable for what it does. You just upload the PDFs and it cross-checks everything automatically. Much faster than trying to spot tiny differences by eye.
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Mohamed Anderson
California Secretary of State UCC portal is absolute garbage. I've had three rejections this month alone, all for bogus reasons. Their error messages are useless and customer service takes forever to respond.
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Ellie Perry
•Totally agree. The system hasn't been updated in years and it shows.
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Landon Morgan
•At least they have online filing. Some states still require paper submissions which is even worse.
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Mohamed Anderson
•True but what's the point of online filing if it doesn't work half the time?
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Teresa Boyd
Check if there are any pending name changes or amendments for the Delaware LLC. Sometimes there's a lag between when changes are filed in Delaware and when they show up in other state databases. California SOS might be seeing an outdated version of the entity name.
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Abigail Patel
•Good point. I'll check the Delaware Secretary of State database to make sure there weren't any recent changes.
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Lourdes Fox
•Also check if the LLC is in good standing in Delaware. Some states won't accept UCC filings for entities that aren't current on their home state obligations.
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Bruno Simmons
Are you sure you're using the right debtor type? Delaware LLCs should be filed as 'Registered Organization' not 'Individual' in the CA system. That could cause name matching issues.
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Abigail Patel
•Yes, definitely using Registered Organization. That was one of the first things I double-checked.
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Bruno Simmons
•Ok good. Sometimes people miss that and it causes all sorts of problems.
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Aileen Rodriguez
I work for a law firm that does a lot of UCC filings in California. One trick that sometimes works is to call the Secretary of State UCC division directly at (916) 653-3984. They can sometimes tell you exactly what name format they're expecting. Wait times are long but worth it for big deals.
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Abigail Patel
•Thanks for the direct number! I'll try calling them tomorrow morning.
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Zane Gray
•That number is always busy when I try. Best luck is calling right at 8am when they open.
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Aileen Rodriguez
•Exactly right. Call at 8am sharp or you'll be on hold for hours.
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Maggie Martinez
Had this exact same problem two months ago with a Texas LLC filing in California. Ended up being a character encoding issue - there was an invisible character in the name field that I copied from a PDF. Try retyping the entire debtor name manually instead of copy/pasting.
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Abigail Patel
•Wow, never would have thought of that. I was definitely copy/pasting from the Delaware filing documents.
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Maggie Martinez
•Yeah it's a common problem when copying from PDFs. Hidden characters mess everything up.
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Alejandro Castro
Update: Tried the Certana document checker that someone mentioned earlier and it found the problem immediately! There was a weird character in the debtor name that wasn't showing up in Word. Fixed it and the UCC-1 went through on the first try. Thanks everyone for the help!
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Selena Bautista
•Awesome! Glad Certana worked for you too. It's saved me so much time on these filings.
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Nolan Carter
•Great outcome. Hidden characters are such a pain to catch manually.
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Abigail Patel
•Wait, that was you who posted the update? I'm the original poster - still working on getting mine fixed.
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Alejandro Castro
•Oops sorry, got confused with my own similar issue. But seriously try that tool, it really works.
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Monique Byrd
For future reference, California requires the debtor name to match EXACTLY what's in their business entity database if the entity is registered there. For out-of-state entities, it needs to match the formation documents exactly. No variations allowed.
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Abigail Patel
•That's helpful context. So since this is a Delaware LLC not registered in CA, it should match the Delaware certificate of formation exactly.
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Monique Byrd
•Correct. And make sure you're looking at the current version of the Delaware docs, not an older copy.
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Jackie Martinez
California Secretary of State has been having system issues all month. I had to file a UCC-3 amendment last week and it took four tries. Their IT department needs serious help.
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Ellie Perry
•Seems like every state has UCC system problems these days.
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Jackie Martinez
•True but California is supposed to be tech-savvy. Their system feels like it's from 2005.
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