Virginia Law

A. The filing office maintains for public inspection a searchable index for all UCC records. The index shall provide for the retrieval of all filed UCC records by the name of the debtor and by the file number of the initial financing statement.

B. Search requests shall be made only on the Information Request form (Form UCC11) and shall include:

1. The name of the debtor to be searched, specifying whether the debtor is an individual or organization. A search request will be processed using the exact name provided by the requestor.

2. The name and address of the person to whom the search report is to be sent.

3. Payment of the appropriate fee, which shall be made by a method set forth in this chapter.

C. Search requests may include:

1. A request that copies of UCC records found in the search be included with the search report, and

2. Instructions on the mode of delivery desired, if other than by postal delivery, which shall be followed if the desired mode is acceptable to the filing office.

D. Search results are produced by the application of standardized search logic to the name presented to the filing office. The following criteria apply to searches:

1. There is no limit to the number of matches that may be returned in response to the search request.

2. No distinction is made between upper and lower case letters.

3. Punctuation marks and accents are disregarded.

4. "Noise words" are limited to "an," "and," "for," "of," and "the." The word "the" is disregarded. Other noise words appearing anywhere except at the beginning of an organization name are disregarded. Certain business words are modified to a standard abbreviation: company to "co," corporation to "corp," limited to "ltd," incorporated to "inc."

5. All spaces are disregarded.

6. After using the preceding criteria to modify the name to be searched, the search will reveal names of debtors that are contained in unlapsed or all initial financing statements in an alphabetical list.

E. Reports created in response to a search request shall include the following:

1. The date and time the report was generated.

2. Identification of the name searched.

3. The through date as of the date and time the report was generated.

4. For an organization, the name as it appears after application of the standardized search logic.

5. Identification of each unlapsed initial financing statement or all initial financing statements filed on or prior to the report date and time corresponding to the search criteria, by name of debtor, by file number, and by file date and file time.

6. For each initial financing statement on the report, a listing of all related UCC records filed by the filing office on or prior to the report date.

7. Copies of all UCC records revealed by the search and requested by the requestor.

F. The filing office may provide access to the searchable index via the Internet that produces search results beyond exact name matches. Search results obtained via the Internet shall not constitute an official search and will not be certified by the filing office.