Section 180.15  Acceptance and Refusal of Records

a)         Role of Secretary.  The duties and responsibilities of the Secretary with respect to the administration of the UCC are ministerial.  In accepting for filing or refusing to file a UCC record, the Secretary does none of the following:

1)         Determine the legal sufficiency or insufficiency of a record.

2)         Determine that a security interest in collateral exists or does not exist.

3)         Determine that information in the record is correct or incorrect, in whole or in part.

4)         Create a presumption that information in the record is correct or incorrect, in whole or in part.

b)         Grounds for refusal.  In addition to the grounds listed in Section 9-516 of the UCC [810 ILCS 5/9-516], allowing the filing officer to refuse a UCC record, the filing officer shall refuse a UCC record if the record contains more than one debtor, secured party or assignee name or address and some names or addresses are missing or illegible, or no address is given in the address field.  As used in this Section, address is deemed to include street address, city, state and postal code.

1)         Deadline for filing a continuation statement.  The first day on which a continuation statement may be filed is the date corresponding to the date upon which the financing statement would lapse, six months preceding the month in which the financing statement would lapse.  If there is no such corresponding date, the first day on which a continuation may be filed is the last day of the sixth month preceding the month in which the financing statement would lapse.

2)         Last day permitted.  The last day on which a continuation statement may be filed is the last business day of maturity before the lapse date of the UCC.  If the last business day on which the UCC matures falls on a holiday or weekend, the filing office must receive the continuation on the last business day prior to the lapse date.

c)         Procedure upon refusal.  Except as provided in Section 180.13 of this Part, if the filing officer finds grounds to refuse a UCC record, the filing officer shall return the record to the remitter and shall return the filing fee.

d)         Notification of defects.  Nothing in this Section prevents a filing officer from communicating to a filer or a remitter that the filing officer noticed apparent potential defects in a UCC record, whether or not it was filed or refused for filing.  However, the filing office is under no obligation to do so and may not, in fact, have the resources to do so, or to identify such defects.  The responsibility for the legal effectiveness of filing rests with filers and remitters and the filing office bears no responsibility for legal effectiveness.

e)         Refusal errors.  If a secured party or a remitter demonstrates to the satisfaction of the filing officer that a UCC record that was refused for filing should not have been, the filing officer will file the UCC record with a filing date and time assigned when the filing occurs.  The filing officer will also file a filing officer statement that states the effective date and time of filing, which shall be the date and time the UCC record was originally tendered for filing.

f)         Transmitting utility rejections.  If a UCC Financing Statement submitted as a Transmitting Utility is rejected because it does not meet the definitions of a Transmitting Utility under the provisions of 810 ILCS 5/9-102(80), it may be resubmitted with proper verification that a Transmitting Utility exists.

1)         Rejected UCCs submitted as a Transmitting Utility will be reviewed by General  Counsel and the Director of the Department of Business Services to determine that a valid reason exists for the rejection.

2)         Upon receipt of the resubmitted UCC Financing Statement with proper verification that a Transmitting Utility exists, the submitted documents will  be accepted and given the same received stamped date as the original date of filing.

(Source:  Amended at 38 Ill. Reg. 15638, effective July 1, 2014)