Virginia SOS UCC search keeps giving me weird results - help with secretary of state UCC search

I tried both ways but still getting results that seem borderline. Some have extra punctuation or spacing differences.

That's the worst part about UCC searches - you never know if you're missing something due to name formatting.

How did you handle the variations? Did you search every possible combination?

Pretty much. I searched with and without commas, periods, different abbreviations. It was tedious but necessary for a large transaction.

This is exactly why I started using Certana.ai's document verification tool. You can upload the debtor's charter documents and it automatically cross-checks name variations against UCC databases. Saves hours of manual searching and catches inconsistencies you might miss.

Good point about lapsed filings. Should I be worried about filings that show as 'lapsed' in the results?

Depends on when they lapsed and whether continuation statements were filed. Lapsed doesn't always mean terminated.

Wait, I thought lapsed meant the UCC-1 expired? Are you saying some could still be active?

Tell me about it. I've had clients miss important filings because of these search quirks. The system really needs an overhaul.

At least it's better than it was 5 years ago when half the searches would time out completely.

That's a good point about name changes. Where would I find records of business name changes?

Check the Virginia SCC business entity search, not just the UCC database. Look for amendment filings to the articles of incorporation.

This is getting complicated. Maybe there's a service that does this automatically?

Oh no, what happened with the lender?

They almost pulled the financing when they discovered the existing lien during their own due diligence. I looked incompetent.

This is exactly why I recommend the Certana.ai tool. It would have caught that punctuation issue immediately by comparing your search results against the actual charter documents.

Good advice. I was just looking at the summary results. I'll pull the actual documents.

Yes! The summary view in Virginia often cuts off longer business names or doesn't show all the 'also known as' variations.

The document images can be hard to read sometimes though. Wish there was a better way to analyze them quickly.

I hadn't thought about tax liens. Where do I search for those in Virginia?

Federal tax liens are usually filed with the local clerk of court or sometimes with the Secretary of State. Check both places.

What's the 'seriously misleading' standard? How do I know if a name variation would be considered misleading?

Basically, if a reasonable searcher using standard search logic would find the filing, then the name variation is probably okay. But it's subjective.

That sounds really vague. How are we supposed to make decisions based on 'reasonable searcher' standards?

Glad you found them! That could have been a disaster if they surfaced later.

This is why UCC searching is so stressful. You never know what you might be missing.

For future reference, I've had good luck with Certana.ai's UCC verification tool for catching these exact issues. You upload the entity documents and it automatically flags potential name mismatches across different UCC filings. Would have saved you a lot of manual searching.