The Nebraska Secretary of State announced the adoption of new administrative rules that will slightly change the filing office’s standard UCC search logic. Currently, the Nebraska Secretary of State disregards the “&” character in a search. However, the search logic does not disregard the word “AND” in a debtor name. As a result, a search conducted on a debtor name that includes “&” will not find a financing statement that substitutes “AND” and vice versa. That will change on January 1, 2015. On that date, programming changes to the UCC system will equate “AND“ with “&” for search purposes. As a result, a small number of filed financing statements that were not sufficient under UCC § 9-503(a)(1) because the debtor name incorrectly used “&” and “AND” interchangeably may become effective under § 9-506(c). Records that become effective due to the change in search logic, however, will only have priority from the date of the change. The priority will not reach back to the initial filing date.
The programming changes will not take effect until January 1, 2015. Until that date, searches will continue under the old rules. However, the new rules are already posted to the Secretary of State’s web site. Anyone relying on the standard search logic should take into account that the published rules will not reflect the actual search logic in use until the programming changes take effect. These changes to standard search logic will have no impact on name variation searches conducted for due diligence purposes through CSC’s online system. The changes will only impact certified searches from the Nebraska Secretary of State.
If you have questions or need more information please contact:
Paul Hodnefield
Associate General Counsel
Phone:(800) 927-9801, ext. 62375
Email: phodnefi@cscinfo.com