Five “Need to Know” Facts About Filing UCC Continuations

In order to maintain a healthy UCC portfolio, a secured party must carefully monitor UCC lapse dates and file timely Continuation Statements when a debtor’s financial obligation extends beyond five years. It is critical that secured parties manage this process meticulously, as a lapsed filing ceases to be effective and can cost the secured party its priority position to collect.

Determining when to file a Continuation Statement can be confusing. Here are five “need to know” facts to get you on the right track:

1. A standard UCC Financing Statement is effective for a period of five years from its date of filing.

2. Every UCC Financing Statement has a filing date and a corresponding lapse date.

3. To extend the term of effectiveness, a secured party must file a Continuation Statement prior to a UCC’s assigned lapse date.

4. A Continuation Statement can only be filed within six months of the UCC’s lapse date; a Continuation Statement that is submitted prematurely will be rejected by the filing office.

5. A filed Continuation Statement extends the UCC’s effectiveness for an additional five years from the date that the Financing Statement would have expired, not from the filing date of the Continuation Statement.

Did you know? Every UCC filing prepared and submitted through the CLAS UCC eZFILE® system is automatically enrolled in free lapse date tracking. As filings approach their lapse date, users receive automated continuation alerts to remind them to take action; on-demand continuation reports allow users to view a listing of filings set to lapse up to a year in advance. Contact CLAS today to request a free system demonstration! 800.952.5696 | connect@clasinfo.com

CLAS Celebrates 35 Years of Business!

CLAS Information Services Celebrates 35th Anniversary

CLAS Information Services is pleased to share that this week marks our 35th anniversary!

CLAS formed in Sacramento, California in 1980 and quickly became a leading provider of UCC and corporate due diligence services to local law firms and commercial lending institutions. Since then, CLAS has extended its reach considerably and presently maintains support facilities in Los Angeles, California; Dover, Delaware; Olympia, Washington and London, England.

To our valued clients, THANK YOU for your business and ongoing support. We owe our success to your loyalty and appreciate each order you entrust to us.

To learn more about the products and services offered by CLAS, visit www.clasinfo.com or contact us at 800.952.5696 or connect@clasinfo.com.

August 2015 State Holidays and Office Closures

State Holidays and Office Closures 

Please note state filing offices occasionally make last-minute changes to their holiday closing schedules. We will update this list as we become aware of any such changes.

Date	State	Holiday
Monday, August 10	RI	Victory Day
Monday, August 17	VT	Bennington Battle Day
Friday, August 21	HI	Statehood Day

CLAS Information Services understands that your job doesn’t stop just because a state filing office is closed. Our online DIY Search and UCC eZFILE® systems provide users with anytime, anywhere access to perform UCC and lien searches, print online images and prepare UCC filings for submission as soon as the state resumes operations. Want to learn more? Contact Kacy Flowers at 800.952.5696 ext. 123 or connect@clasinfo.com.

CLAS Adds Five New States to DIY Search System

Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota Now Available 

CLAS Information Services is pleased to announce that we have added five new states to our DIY Search System™.  Users can now logon to www.clasinfo.com and perform searches in Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

See below for details on what lien types are included in the data:

Kansas: UCCs and Federal Tax Liens

Montana: UCCs

Nebraska: UCCs, Federal and State Tax Liens and Judgments

North Dakota: UCCs, Federal and State Tax Liens

South Dakota: UCCs and Federal Tax Liens

The CLAS DIY Search System™ provides users with anytime, anywhere access to perform UCC and lien searches, prepare customized search reports, print or save document images, generate similar name reports, access historical search results and more.

Want to learn more? Contact CLAS at 800.952.5696 or click here to schedule a free online system demonstration!

Delaware Division of Corporations to Close for System Upgrade

Division of Corporations Will Be Closed September 4-8, 2015

The Delaware Division of Corporations recently announced that it is completing a major upgrade to its computer platform, the first comprehensive rewrite of the Division's imaging, workflow and data systems since 1989.

To facilitate the upgrade, the Division of Corporations will close at 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, September 3, 2015 and is scheduled to reopen for business at 8:00 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, September 8, 2015.

Click here to read full-text notice from the Delaware Division of Corporations. 

PLEASE NOTE: During the closure, no business entity filings, UCC filings, document retrievals or UCC searches can be completed. CLAS recommends submitting your service requests before 12:00 p.m. Eastern, 9:00 a.m. Pacific on Thursday, September 3 to ensure timely processing.

Contact CLAS Information Services for help in planning your projects to avoid potential service delays. 800.952.5696 | connect@clasinfo.com

Technology Drives New State Certification Techniques

New Trends in State Certification

Has this ever happened to you? As part of a routine due diligence investigation, you order a certified copy of an entity’s articles of incorporation. When you receive the document back from the filing office or your service provider, you cannot determine if what you are holding is a certified document or not!

This is a rather new public records dilemma. Certified documents used to be obvious and elaborate: embossed foil stamps, wax seals, full color cover sheets, hand-written signatures – these were all common marks of certification even just a few years back. We’ve come a long way. Today, many states allow requesting parties print certified documents directly from their website, and this technological advancement has driven filing offices to develop new, more subtle methods for applying certification.

Certified documents printed from a state’s website will most commonly include a black and white cover page, or a certification code that can be entered online to verify the document’s authenticity. And these new certification techniques are not limited strictly to the digital realm. In an effort to cut costs, some states are beginning to use these same methods of certification for documents they produce in house.

While these new techniques have made certification simpler and more cost effective, they can occasionally cause confusion. Some filing offices and regulatory agencies are not used to seeing documents certified in these ways and staff may not immediately recognize documents bearing these marks as originals.

If you find yourself in a situation where the authenticity of your document is being questioned, refer to the issuing agency’s website for details about their certification practices or call CLAS Information Services at 800.952.5696. Our highly trained, friendly Service Representatives are always happy to help!

Evaluating if UCC E-filing is Right for Your Organization

Is UCC E-filing the Right Choice for Your Organization?

These days, nearly every state filing office accepts some form of electronic filing (E-filing) for UCC documents, often either through xml transmission or a fillable web form. Some states are even beginning to mandate E-filing for UCCs. Back in 2012, Colorado became the first state to require that all UCC filings be submitted electronically. New Jersey has now followed suit and will require E-filing for all UCCs beginning July 1, 2015. Click here to read our blog post about this new development.

In recent years, E-filing has been gaining popularity among lenders and other high-volume UCC filers owing to a couple of key benefits. First, E-filing is a great way to reduce UCC filing costs.  That’s because most states charge a lower fee to file a UCC that is submitted electronically than they do for a paper document that is presented for “over the counter” processing. Consider Delaware, for example, where a one-page, single debtor UCC Financing Statement submitted in paper form will incur a $100 filing fee while that same document submitted electronically will incur a charge of only $30.

E-filing UCC documents not only saves money it also saves time. A paper filing is subject to indexing backlogs and other processing delays at state filing offices, which can slow the turn-around time for acknowledgement. A filing that is submitted electronically requires little (if any) filing officer involvement though, so it is often assigned a date and file number much more quickly. In fact, most E-filed UCCs are acknowledged within 24 hours – sometimes even sooner.

Despite these benefits, some UCC filers have been reluctant to adopt E-filing over concerns about formatting changes that can occur with electronically filed UCC documents. Here’s why.

If you elect to begin E-filing your UCCs, it is important to be aware that the acknowledgement copy you receive back from the state may look different from the document you prepared. In many states, an electronically filed document will undergo minor changes during the submission process. These can include converting text to ALL CAPS, changes to font style or size, adjustments in spacing or formatting of collateral descriptions and more.  

UCC experts agree that these changes are purely cosmetic and will not compromise the effectiveness of the record, but it is always best to know what to expect when making a change to an important business process.

Ready to Start E-filing?

The CLAS Information Services UCC eZFILE® system offers E-filing in every state that accepts UCCs electronically. That’s over 40 filing offices nationwide! As an added benefit, every document submitted through UCC eZFILE® is reviewed by one of our highly trained UCC experts to catch potential filing errors, reduce rejected filing and save you money. Contact CLAS today at 800.952.5696 or connect@clasinfo.com to learn more or click here to request a free system demonstration!