Changes Affecting Non-Real Estate UCC Searches in Georgia

Recent changes affecting searching for UCC filings in Georgia

Unlike other states, Georgia has no central filing office such as the Secretary of State for filing UCCs. Instead, non-real estate UCCs are submitted to an individual county. The county Clerk assigns a file number, then transmits the UCC information and an image to the Georgia Clerk’s Authority, which then indexes the UCC in a statewide database and makes the image available.

Until recently, subsequent UCC-3 filings had to be filed in the same county as the original UCC. That is no longer a requirement. Now it is legal to file subsequent UCCs in any of Georgia’s 159 counties. This means that while it is possible to search a single county in Georgia for UCC filings, doing so can result in omissions in what is reported. Fortunately, CLAS always performs a search of the Statewide UCC database for Georgia UCC Searches. (One exception to this is in the case of conducting a search after filing, if you are doing so to ensure that it has been filed correctly.)

Information about non-real estate UCC searches in Georgia originally appeared in our February 2015 newsletter. To stay up-to-date on UCCs, you can subscribe to receive our newsletter, which is issued every other month. If you have questions about searching for UCCs in Georgia or elsewhere, please contact your CLAS Service Representative.