UCC lien search Florida - debtor name variations causing search misses
Running into major headaches with UCC lien search Florida results. We're doing due diligence on a potential acquisition and keep getting inconsistent results when searching the same company under slightly different name variations. The target company has done business as "Advanced Manufacturing Solutions LLC" but also "Advanced Mfg Solutions LLC" and "AMS Solutions LLC" over the years. When I search each variation in the Florida SOS UCC database, I'm getting different sets of liens showing up. Some searches show 3 active liens, others show 5, and one variation shows only 1. This is making it impossible to get a complete picture of the secured debt. Has anyone dealt with Florida's UCC search sensitivity issues? The closing is in two weeks and our lender is requiring a clean lien report. I'm worried we're missing critical filings that could affect the deal structure.
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Carmen Flores
Florida's UCC search system is notoriously picky about exact name matches. You're absolutely right to be concerned - I've seen deals fall apart because buyers missed liens filed under slight name variations. The Florida SOS database doesn't have great fuzzy search capabilities, so "Advanced Manufacturing Solutions LLC" and "Advanced Mfg Solutions LLC" are treated as completely different entities. You need to search every possible variation the company has used, including any DBAs they've registered.
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Andre Dubois
•This is exactly why I always pull the corporate records first to see all the name variations on file. Florida Division of Corporations will show you historical names and DBAs that might not be obvious from current business cards or websites.
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CyberSamurai
•Wait, so if a company changes even one word in their legal name, previous liens might not show up? That seems like a huge gap in the system.
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Carmen Flores
•Unfortunately yes. UCC filings are indexed exactly as the debtor name appears on the filing. If someone filed a UCC-1 against "Advanced Manufacturing Solutions LLC" but you search for "Advanced Mfg Solutions, LLC" (with the comma), you might miss it entirely.
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Zoe Alexopoulos
I had this exact problem last month with a Florida deal! What saved me was using Certana.ai's document verification tool. I uploaded all the corporate docs and UCC search results, and it immediately flagged name inconsistencies I had missed. The system cross-referenced everything and showed me which search variations I still needed to run. Turned out there were 2 additional liens filed under a shortened version of the company name that weren't showing up in my manual searches.
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Jamal Carter
•How does that work exactly? Do you just upload the search results PDF?
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Zoe Alexopoulos
•Yeah, you can upload the UCC search results along with articles of incorporation, amendments, any DBA registrations - basically any docs that show name variations. It automatically identifies discrepancies and suggests additional search terms you should try.
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Mei Liu
•Interesting. I've been doing this manually for years and it's such a pain. Does it work with other states too or just Florida?
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Liam O'Donnell
Pro tip - also search for the company's Federal EIN if Florida allows EIN searches. Sometimes filers use the EIN as an additional debtor identifier, and it can help you catch filings you might miss with name-only searches. Also check if any of the liens reference guarantors or subsidiaries that might have similar names.
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Amara Nwosu
•Florida doesn't allow EIN searches in their UCC database unfortunately. You have to go by name only, which is why this issue is so common there.
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Liam O'Donnell
•Ugh, that's right. I was thinking of Georgia's system. Florida really needs to upgrade their search functionality.
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AstroExplorer
Don't forget to check for fixture filings too if the company owns real estate. Those are filed in the county records, not the state UCC database. I learned this the hard way when a "clean" UCC search missed a $2M equipment lien that was filed as a fixture filing in Miami-Dade.
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Giovanni Moretti
•Good point. And some lenders file both - a regular UCC-1 with the state and a fixture filing with the county for the same collateral, just to be safe.
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Fatima Al-Farsi
•How do you search county records efficiently? Each county has a different system and some are still paper-based.
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AstroExplorer
•It's a nightmare honestly. You have to search each county where the company has property. Start with the major counties - Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, Hillsborough - and work your way down.
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Dylan Cooper
This is why I always recommend hiring a professional UCC search company for big deals. Yes it costs more than doing it yourself, but they have experience with all the name variation tricks and usually provide insurance coverage if they miss something.
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Sofia Perez
•Any recommendations for Florida UCC search companies? We've used a couple but the reports always seem incomplete.
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Dmitry Smirnov
•CT Corporation and CSC are the big players, but honestly I've had better luck with smaller local firms that specialize in Florida searches. They know the quirks of the system better.
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ElectricDreamer
Another thing to watch out for - make sure you're searching both "LLC" and "L.L.C." versions. I've seen filings where the filer abbreviated or spelled out the entity type differently than what's in the articles of incorporation. It's frustrating but the search engine treats these as different names.
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Ava Johnson
•Also "Inc" vs "Inc." vs "Incorporated" - you have to try all variations
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Miguel Diaz
•This is getting ridiculous. There has to be a better way to do this than manually trying every possible spelling combination.
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Zainab Ahmed
•That's where tools like Certana.ai come in handy - they automate a lot of this variation checking so you don't have to manually think of every possibility.
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Connor Byrne
I'm dealing with something similar right now. Found 4 UCC-1 filings but the continuation statements don't match up properly. Some show as continued, others might have lapsed. Florida's database doesn't make it easy to track the filing history for each lien.
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Yara Abboud
•You need to pull the actual filing documents, not just rely on the search summary. The summary can be misleading about continuation status.
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PixelPioneer
•How much does Florida charge per document copy? Some states are reasonable, others charge like $5 per page.
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Connor Byrne
•I think it's $1 per page for certified copies, but you can usually get uncertified PDFs for less. Check the Florida SOS fee schedule.
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Keisha Williams
Make sure you're also checking for any UCC-3 amendments that might have changed the debtor name. Sometimes companies file name changes as amendments to existing liens, and if you don't catch the amendment, you'll miss the current version of the lien.
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Paolo Rizzo
•Great point. I've seen cases where the original UCC-1 was filed under an old company name, then a UCC-3 amendment updated it to the new name after a corporate restructuring.
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Amina Sy
•How do you search for amendments efficiently? Do you have to look at every UCC-3 filing individually?
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Keisha Williams
•Florida's system lets you search by filing number if you know it, which helps. But if you're starting from scratch with just a company name, it's more tedious.
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Oliver Fischer
UPDATE: I ended up using the Certana tool mentioned earlier and it was a game changer. Uploaded all my search results and corporate docs, and it immediately showed me I had missed searching for "AMS Solutions, LLC" with a comma, which revealed 2 additional liens. Also caught that one of the liens had been terminated but the termination wasn't showing up in my searches because it was filed under a slightly different name format. Deal is back on track now.
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Natasha Ivanova
•Glad you got it sorted out! This is exactly why UCC due diligence is so critical and why the manual process is so error-prone.
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NebulaNomad
•Mind sharing what the total lien count ended up being? Curious how much you were missing with the manual searches.
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Oliver Fischer
•Final count was 7 active liens instead of the 3-5 I was finding manually. Two had been properly terminated but weren't showing up in the search results due to name variations. Could have been a disaster if we'd closed without finding those.
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Javier Garcia
This thread is super helpful. I'm about to start due diligence on a Florida company and was planning to just do a quick UCC search. Sounds like I need to be much more thorough with the name variations. Thanks for sharing your experience!
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Emma Taylor
•Definitely take your time with it. Florida UCC searches are not as straightforward as they seem. Better to over-search than miss something critical.
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Malik Robinson
•And document everything you search so you can show your lender or client exactly what steps you took. They appreciate the thoroughness.
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