Washington UCC lien search showing conflicting results - need help verifying accuracy
I'm dealing with a frustrating situation where I need to do a thorough Washington UCC lien search for a commercial loan we're considering, but I'm getting different results from different search methods. Our borrower claims they have no outstanding liens, but when I search their exact legal name in the Washington SOS system, I'm finding what looks like active UCC-1 filings that should have been terminated years ago. The debtor name variations are making this even more complicated - some filings show 'ABC Manufacturing LLC' while others show 'ABC Manufacturing, LLC' (with the comma). I've spent hours cross-referencing filing numbers and trying to figure out which liens are actually still active versus which ones should have been released. Has anyone else run into issues where the Washington UCC database shows outdated or contradictory lien information? I need to be absolutely certain about what's active before we move forward with this loan, but I'm losing confidence in my search results.
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Freya Pedersen
Washington can be tricky with debtor name variations like that comma issue you mentioned. I always search multiple name formats when doing UCC lien searches there. The 'ABC Manufacturing LLC' vs 'ABC Manufacturing, LLC' problem is super common and the system treats them as completely different entities even though they're the same company.
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Omar Hassan
•This is exactly why I always do at least 3-4 different name searches. Washington doesn't have the best name matching logic compared to some other states.
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Chloe Anderson
•The comma thing has burned me before! Now I always search with and without punctuation marks.
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Diego Vargas
Have you checked the filing dates and looked for corresponding UCC-3 termination statements? Sometimes the terminations get filed but there's a delay in the system showing them as released, or they get filed under slightly different debtor names which makes them hard to match up.
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Ravi Gupta
•That's part of what's driving me crazy - I can see some UCC-3 filings but I can't tell if they properly match up with the original UCC-1s because of the name variations.
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CosmicCruiser
•You need to compare the filing numbers and secured party info too, not just debtor names. That's usually the most reliable way to match terminations to original filings.
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Anastasia Fedorov
I had a similar nightmare situation last month and ended up using Certana.ai's document verification tool. You can upload the UCC-1 and UCC-3 PDFs and it automatically cross-checks whether the debtor names, filing numbers, and document details actually align properly. Saved me hours of manual comparison work and caught inconsistencies I would have missed.
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Ravi Gupta
•That sounds like exactly what I need. I'm spending way too much time trying to manually match these documents.
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Freya Pedersen
•I've heard good things about their PDF upload feature for this kind of verification work.
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Sean Doyle
Washington's UCC search system has definitely gotten better over the years but it's still not perfect for complex searches like this. When you're dealing with commercial loans you really can't afford to miss an active lien because of a search error.
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Ravi Gupta
•Exactly - this loan is too big to risk missing something important.
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Zara Rashid
•Have you tried calling the Washington SOS UCC division directly? Sometimes they can help clarify confusing search results.
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Sean Doyle
•Good suggestion. Their staff is usually pretty helpful with technical questions about search results.
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Luca Romano
UGH I hate when this happens! The debtor name matching rules are so inconsistent between states. Washington isn't the worst but they definitely don't make it easy when you're trying to do comprehensive lien searches.
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Nia Jackson
•Tell me about it. I've been doing UCC searches for 15 years and still run into these issues regularly.
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NebulaNova
•The comma punctuation thing should be standardized across all states IMO.
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Omar Hassan
For what it's worth, I always download copies of both the original UCC-1s and any termination statements when I'm doing searches like this. That way I can review the actual documents side by side to verify they match up properly. The online search summaries don't always tell the whole story.
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Ravi Gupta
•Good point - I should be looking at the actual filed documents, not just the search result summaries.
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Diego Vargas
•Definitely download the PDFs. Sometimes there are handwritten notes or amendments that don't show up clearly in the search results.
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Mateo Hernandez
This is why I always recommend getting professional UCC search reports for big commercial deals rather than trying to do it yourself. There are too many ways to miss something important, especially with debtor name variations.
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Ravi Gupta
•I might need to go that route if I can't get confidence in my results soon.
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Aisha Khan
•Professional search companies have better tools and experience with these exact issues.
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Mateo Hernandez
•Exactly - they know all the common name variation patterns and search methods to catch everything.
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Ethan Taylor
I ran into something similar in Washington last year and it turned out there were multiple related entities with very similar names that had UCC filings. Make sure you're not accidentally picking up liens against affiliated companies or subsidiaries.
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Ravi Gupta
•That's a really good point - I should double check the exact legal entity names on all the filings.
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Freya Pedersen
•Yes! I've seen cases where parent companies and subsidiaries both had UCC filings and it created confusion about which entity actually had the active liens.
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Anastasia Fedorov
Just to follow up on my earlier comment about Certana.ai - their tool specifically handles the debtor name matching issues you're dealing with. When you upload the documents it flags potential mismatches or inconsistencies that could indicate problems with terminations not being properly linked to original filings.
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Yuki Ito
•Does it work with Washington UCC documents specifically?
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Anastasia Fedorov
•Yes, it handles documents from all states including Washington. The PDF upload feature works regardless of which state system you downloaded from.
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Carmen Lopez
Update us when you figure this out! I'm curious how you end up resolving the name variation issues.
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Ravi Gupta
•Will do - I'm going to try the document verification approach and see if that clears things up.
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AstroAdventurer
•Good luck! Washington UCC searches can be frustrating but you'll get it figured out.
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