2023 District of Columbia Code › Title 28 - Commercial Instruments and Transactions. [Enacted title] › Subtitle I - Uniform Commercial Code › Article 9 - Secured Transactions › Part V - Filing › Subpart 1 - Filing Office; Contents and Effectiveness of Financing Statement › § 28:9–501. Filing office

§ 28:9–501. Filing office.
(a) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b), if the local law of the District governs perfection of a security interest or agricultural lien, the office in which to file a financing statement to perfect the security interest or agricultural lien is:
(1) The Recorder of Deeds, if:
(A) The collateral is as-extracted collateral or timber to be cut; or
(B) The financing statement is filed as a fixture filing and the collateral is goods that are or are to become fixtures; or
(2) The Mayor in all other cases, including a case in which the collateral is goods that are or are to become fixtures and the financing statement is not filed as a fixture filing.
(b) The office in which to file a financing statement to perfect a security interest in collateral, including fixtures, of a transmitting utility is the Office of the Mayor. The financing statement also constitutes a fixture filing as to the collateral indicated in the financing statement which is or is to become fixtures.
(Oct. 26, 2000, D.C. Law 13-201, § 101, 47 DCR 7576.)
Section References
This section is referenced in § 28:9-102, § 28:9-109, § 28:9-502, § 28:9-512, § 28:9-516, § 28:9-706, § 28:9-707, § 28:9-806, and § 28:9-807.
Uniform Commercial Code Comment
1. Source. Derived from former Section 9-401.
2. Where to File. Subsection (a) indicates where in a given State a financing statement is to be filed. Former Article 9 afforded each State three alternative approaches, depending on the extent to which the State desires central filing (usually with the Secretary of State), local filing (usually with a county office), or both. As Comment 1 to former Section 9-401 observed, “The principal advantage of state-wide filing is ease of access to the credit information which the files exist to provide. Consider for example the national distributor who wishes to have current information about the credit standing of the thousands of persons he sells to on credit. The more completely the files are centralized on a state-wide basis, the easier and cheaper it becomes to procure credit information; the more the files are scattered in local filing units, the more burdensome and costly.“ Local filing increases the net costs of secured transactions also by increasing uncertainty and the number of required filings. Any benefit that local filing may have had in the 1950’s is now insubstantial. Accordingly, this Article dictates central filing for most situations, while retaining local filing for real-estate-related collateral and special filing provisions for transmitting utilities.
3. Minerals and Timber. Under subsection (a)(1), a filing in the office where a record of a mortgage on the related real property would be filed will perfect a security interest in as-extracted collateral. Inasmuch as the security interest does not attach until extraction, the filing continues to be effective after extraction. A different result occurs with respect to timber to be cut, however. Unlike as-extracted collateral, standing timber may be goods before it is cut. See Section 9-102 (defining “goods”). Once cut, however, it is no longer timber to be cut, and the filing in the real-property-mortgage office ceases to be effective. The timber then becomes ordinary goods, and filing in the office specified in subsection (a)(2) is necessary for perfection. Note also that after the timber is cut the law of the debtor’s location, not the location of the timber, governs perfection under Section 9-301.
4. Fixtures. There are two ways in which a secured party may file a financing statement to perfect a security interest in goods that are or are to become fixtures. It may file in the Article 9 records, as with most other goods. See subsection (a)(2). Or it may file the financing statement as a “fixture filing,” defined in Section 9-102, in the office in which a record of a mortgage on the related real property would be filed. See subsection(a)(1)(B).
5. Transmitting Utilities. The usual filing rules do not apply well for a transmitting utility (defined in Section 9-102). Many pre-UCC statutes provided special filing rules for railroads and in some cases for other public utilities, to avoid the requirements for filing with legal descriptions in every county in which such debtors had property. Former Section 9-401(5) recreated and broadened these provisions, and subsection (b) follows this approach. The nature of the debtor will inform persons searching the record as to where to make a search.