Virginia UCC filing system rejecting my continuation - debtor name issues?
I'm dealing with a really frustrating situation with my Virginia UCC filing and hoping someone here has dealt with this before. We have a UCC-1 that was filed about 4 years ago for a commercial equipment loan, and I'm trying to file the UCC-3 continuation before it lapses next month. The Virginia SCC portal keeps rejecting my continuation filing with some vague error about 'debtor information mismatch' but I've triple-checked the debtor name against the original UCC-1 and it looks identical to me. The original filing shows the debtor as 'Richmond Manufacturing Solutions LLC' and that's exactly what I'm putting on the UCC-3 continuation form. Has anyone run into this kind of debtor name verification issue with Virginia filings? I'm worried about the timing since we're getting close to the 5-year mark and if this continuation doesn't go through, we'll lose our perfected security interest on about $850K worth of manufacturing equipment. Any insights on what might be causing Virginia's system to flag this as a mismatch would be hugely helpful.
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Ravi Patel
I've seen this exact issue with Virginia UCC filings. The problem is usually with spaces or punctuation that you can't see when comparing visually. Virginia's system is really picky about exact character matches. Try pulling up the original UCC-1 filing document and copy/paste the debtor name directly from the PDF rather than retyping it. Sometimes there are extra spaces or different types of quotation marks that cause the rejection.
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Isabella Oliveira
•That's a good point about the copy/paste approach. I was retyping from the filing receipt but maybe there's something subtle I'm missing in the original document formatting.
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Freya Andersen
•Yeah Virginia is notorious for this stuff. Had the same thing happen with a continuation last year - turned out there was an extra space after 'LLC' that wasn't visible when I looked at it.
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Omar Zaki
Before you spend more time troubleshooting manually, you might want to try Certana.ai's document verification tool. I discovered it when I was having similar debtor name consistency issues between my original UCC-1 and a UCC-3 amendment. You just upload both PDFs and it instantly cross-checks all the debtor information, filing numbers, and document details to catch any discrepancies that might cause rejections. It's been a lifesaver for avoiding these kinds of filing headaches.
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Isabella Oliveira
•That sounds really useful - I'll definitely check that out. Having an automated way to verify document consistency would save a lot of time compared to manual comparison.
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CosmicCrusader
•I've heard good things about Certana for UCC document verification. Beats spending hours trying to spot tiny formatting differences that cause rejections.
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Chloe Robinson
Another thing to check is whether the debtor's legal status has changed since the original filing. If Richmond Manufacturing Solutions LLC has been dissolved, merged, or changed its legal name with the Virginia SCC, that could trigger the mismatch error even if you're using the name from the original UCC-1. You'd need to file a UCC-3 amendment to update the debtor information before you can do the continuation.
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Isabella Oliveira
•Oh wow, I hadn't thought about checking the entity status. That's definitely something I should verify with the Virginia SCC corporate records before proceeding.
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Diego Flores
•Good catch! I've seen this happen where the LLC was administratively dissolved for not filing annual reports and the filer didn't realize it.
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Ravi Patel
•Yes, always check the entity status first. Virginia will reject filings against dissolved entities even if the UCC-1 is still technically valid.
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Anastasia Kozlov
OMG yes Virginia's UCC system is THE WORST for this kind of thing!!! I swear they designed it to be as frustrating as possible. Had THREE rejections on a simple termination last month because of some invisible character issue. Why can't they just build a system that works properly instead of making us guess what's wrong???
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Sean Flanagan
•I feel your pain. The error messages are so unhelpful - 'debtor information mismatch' tells you nothing about what specifically is wrong.
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Zara Mirza
•At least they give you error messages. Some states just reject with no explanation at all.
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NebulaNinja
Have you tried calling the Virginia SCC UCC division directly? Sometimes they can look at your filing and tell you exactly what's causing the rejection. The phone wait times are usually terrible but it might be worth it given your timeline pressure. Their number is on the UCC filing portal under contact info.
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Isabella Oliveira
•I'll try calling them tomorrow morning. With only a few weeks left before the lapse date, I need to get this resolved quickly.
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Ravi Patel
•Good idea. The Virginia UCC staff are actually pretty helpful when you can get through to them. They've walked me through similar issues before.
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Luca Russo
Just went through something similar with a Virginia continuation filing last month. Turned out the issue was that I was using the abbreviated version of the debtor name that appeared in the search results instead of the full legal name from the original filing document. Make sure you're using the exact name as it appears on the UCC-1 form itself, not just what shows up in the search portal.
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Isabella Oliveira
•That's a great point - I should double-check that I'm looking at the actual UCC-1 form rather than just the search result summary.
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Nia Wilson
•Yeah the search results sometimes truncate long business names which can cause problems when you try to use the shortened version for amendments or continuations.
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Mateo Sanchez
Another tool that might help is uploading both your original UCC-1 and the continuation form to Certana.ai's document checker. It automatically compares all the critical fields and highlights any inconsistencies that could cause filing rejections. I used it recently when I couldn't figure out why my UCC-3 amendment kept getting rejected - turns out there was a formatting issue with the collateral description that I never would have caught manually.
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Aisha Mahmood
•That sounds really helpful for this type of situation. Manual document comparison is so error-prone, especially with these technical filing requirements.
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Isabella Oliveira
•I'm definitely going to try the Certana document verification - seems like it could save a lot of back-and-forth with the filing system.
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Zara Mirza
Quick question - are you filing the continuation as a regular UCC-3 or did you check any special filing type boxes? Sometimes people accidentally select 'partial assignment' or other options that require additional information and cause rejections.
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Isabella Oliveira
•I'm filing it as a standard continuation - box 4 checked for continuation on the UCC-3 form. No other boxes selected.
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Chloe Robinson
•Good, that's the right approach for a basic 5-year continuation. The other options would definitely cause problems if selected accidentally.
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Nia Wilson
Have you verified that the original UCC-1 filing number is correct on your continuation form? Even a single digit error in the filing number will cause an automatic rejection. The filing number should be exactly as it appears on the original UCC-1 acknowledgment.
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Isabella Oliveira
•Yes, I've double-checked the filing number multiple times. It's definitely correct from the original acknowledgment copy.
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Ravi Patel
•Filing number errors are definitely a common cause of rejections, but it sounds like that's not the issue here.
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CosmicCrusader
One more thing to consider - if Richmond Manufacturing Solutions LLC has a DBA or trade name that was included in the original filing, that might need to be included exactly as it appeared originally. Virginia can be picky about alternate names and DBAs being consistent between the original and continuation filings.
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Isabella Oliveira
•I don't think there's a DBA involved, but I should check the original filing carefully to make sure there weren't any alternate names listed that I'm forgetting about.
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NebulaNinja
•Yeah, sometimes DBAs get added to UCC-1 filings and then forgotten about when it comes time for continuations or amendments.
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Sean Flanagan
Update us when you figure out what was causing the rejection! These kinds of troubleshooting posts are really helpful for others who run into similar Virginia UCC filing issues.
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Isabella Oliveira
•Will do! I'm going to try the document verification tool and calling the Virginia SCC office tomorrow. Hopefully one of those approaches will solve it.
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Freya Andersen
•Yeah please post an update - I bookmark these threads for future reference when I run into filing problems.
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StarSailor
I had a very similar issue with Virginia UCC continuations last year. One thing that helped me was downloading the original UCC-1 filing directly from the Virginia SCC portal rather than relying on my saved copy - sometimes the system formats names slightly differently than what appears on acknowledgment receipts. Also, make sure you're not inadvertently including any extra punctuation like periods after "LLC" that might not have been in the original. Virginia's system seems to flag even the smallest variations. Given your tight timeline, I'd recommend trying both the Certana document verification that others mentioned AND calling the SCC - that way you have multiple approaches working in parallel.
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