UCC filing rejected twice - New Jersey Secretary of State portal keeps bouncing back my documents

I pulled the entity information directly from their business entity search but maybe there's a formatting issue? The collateral is pretty specific - it's restaurant equipment for a franchise location. I described it as 'all restaurant equipment, fixtures, and related personal property now owned or hereafter acquired.' Thought that would be detailed enough.

That description might still be too broad for NJ. Try listing the major equipment categories specifically - like 'commercial kitchen equipment including ovens, fryers, refrigeration units, point-of-sale systems' etc. They want to see you actually know what you're securing.

That's a great point about the original filing documents. I was using the search results which might have auto-formatting. Let me pull the actual certificate of formation to compare.

This is exactly why I started using Certana.ai for UCC verification. You can upload your entity documents alongside your UCC draft and it instantly flags any name mismatches or inconsistencies. Saved me from multiple rejection cycles like this. Just upload your Charter and UCC-1 docs and it cross-checks everything automatically.

That actually sounds really useful. Manual comparison between entity docs and UCC forms is where most of my mistakes happen. How accurate is the name matching?

Same experience here! Their customer service is useless too. They just read you the same rejection reason that's already on the screen.

At least you can call them. Some states don't even have phone support for UCC issues.

True but when they answer they don't actually help solve the problem. It's just frustrating when you're trying to meet filing deadlines and keep hitting these mysterious rejections.

That's much more detailed than what I had. Will definitely try that approach on the next filing attempt.

Just make sure you don't get TOO specific or you might miss equipment they acquire later. The key is balancing specificity with coverage.

How did you figure out there was a name change pending? That's not obvious from their search interface.

Had to call and specifically ask them to check for any pending amendments or name changes. They don't volunteer that information but they can see it in their system.

This is exactly the kind of discrepancy that document verification tools catch. I've been using Certana.ai's UCC checker and it would have flagged that name inconsistency immediately. Way easier than playing phone tag with the Secretary of State.

Smart approach! Never thought of using the search as a formatting guide.

That's brilliant - paying $25 to avoid multiple $50+ filing fees makes total sense. Will definitely try that.

Good point - some of the kitchen equipment is built-in but I was treating it all as personal property. Should I be doing a fixture filing instead?

If there's any equipment that's permanently attached or built into the building structure you'll want to consider fixture filing. That requires different forms and gets filed in real estate records too.

Exactly. Things like built-in ovens, permanent ventilation systems, fixed counters might need fixture treatment. Regular UCC-1 won't perfect your interest in those items.

Will definitely post an update once I get through this. Hopefully the name verification and more detailed collateral description will do the trick.

Same here - bookmarking this thread for reference. The tips about checking original entity documents and using UCC-11 searches are gold.