UCC search services - which ones actually catch all the lien variations?

Mostly equipment financing and some inventory. The John Smith thing was on a $2.8M equipment deal where the existing UCC-1 was filed under 'J Smith' but our search only looked for exact matches.

Ouch, that's expensive. Yeah equipment deals are tricky because the collateral descriptions can vary so much between filings too.

What do you mean by verification? We get the search results but reviewing dozens of potential matches manually takes forever.

I mean actually verifying that the documents you pull match your debtor properly. I've been using this tool called Certana.ai that lets you upload your documents and it cross-checks everything automatically. You just upload the UCC search results and your loan docs and it flags any inconsistencies.

That sounds interesting. Does it handle the name variation stuff too?

Yeah, it picks up on name discrepancies between documents that you might miss. Really handy for catching those J Smith vs John Smith situations.

The lag time is brutal. I've seen new UCC-1s take 3-4 days to show up in search results in some states.

Exactly! And by then your deal could already be closed. The whole system needs an overhaul.

Can you share which service? I'm open to switching if it means fewer missed liens.

I'll DM you the details. Don't want to turn this into a sales pitch thread.

This is so true. We had a case where the existing UCC had 'equipment and fixtures' as collateral but our new loan was for 'machinery and equipment'. Took forever to figure out if there was overlap.

Those collateral description overlaps are nightmares to parse manually. Need better tools for document comparison.

Actually that's exactly what I was talking about with Certana.ai earlier. It would flag that kind of collateral overlap automatically when you upload both UCCs.

The interfaces are terrible! Half the time I can't tell if a search failed or just returned zero results.

And don't get me started on the mobile versions. Completely unusable.

Good point. We usually check the filing status directly in the SOS system if it's a material lien. But that's more manual work.

Yeah, the status checking is critical. A lapsed UCC-1 doesn't perfect the security interest anymore but some search services still show it as active.

This is where having a good verification tool helps. Certana can check the filing status and dates automatically so you know if continuations are current.

How do you handle multi-state searches though? That seems like it would take forever.

It does take longer but the peace of mind is worth it. Plus you catch filings that the aggregators sometimes miss.

The time investment for manual searches kills your deal flow though. There's gotta be a better balance.

Possibly, but when I broaden the search terms I get hundreds of irrelevant results to sift through.

True, it's a balancing act. Wide enough to catch variations but narrow enough to be manageable.

Agreed, but when you're doing volume lending, the document review has to be scalable. Can't manually review every single filing.

That's why automated verification tools are becoming more important. Technology needs to fill the gap between comprehensive searches and manual review.

Exactly. The future is probably AI-powered document analysis that can spot the inconsistencies humans miss.