Standard Search Logic Under Article 9: The Florida Debacle Revisited

Authors

Kenneth C. Kettering, Columbia Law School

Abstract

If a financing statement is filed in a filing office that does not have a search system that uses a standard search logic, Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code provides that there is no tolerance for any error, however slight, in the debtor’s name shown on that financing statement. Such an erroneous financing statement will not be effective to perfect a security interest. In 2012 the author warned that the search system used by Florida’s central filing office lacks a standard search logic, and in 2022 the Florida Supreme Court so held. This Article (i) details how Florida should modernize its search system to invest it with a standard search logic, (ii) evaluates the partial modernization Florida adopted in November 2024, (iii) evaluates a proposal for nationwide revision of Article 9’s system for filing and indexing financing statements, and (iv) recommends that states adopt the proposal by previous scholars to amend their enactments of Article 9 to award an unperfected security interest priority over the interest of a lien creditor, which would greatly reduce litigation over perfection.

Recommended Citation

Kenneth C. Kettering, Standard Search Logic Under Article 9: The Florida Debacle Revisited, 79 U. Mia. L. Rev. 514 (2025)
Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr/vol79/iss3/5