Code of Maine Rules › 29 - DEPARTMENT OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE › 250 - BUREAU OF MOTOR VEHICLES › Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions › Chapter 401 - ADMINISTRATIVE RULES FOR UNIFORM COMMERCIAL CODE, TITLE 11, ARTICLE 9-A › Section 250-401-1 - General Provisions

Current through 2024-29, July 17, 2024
100 Definitions.
Terms used in these
					 filing-office rules but not defined in this Section that are defined in the UCC
					 shall have the respective meanings accorded these terms in the UCC.
A. "Active Record" means a UCC record that
				  has been stored in the UCC information management system and indexed in, but
				  not yet removed from, the searchable indexes, because it has not reached the
				  one-year anniversary of its lapse date.
B. "Address" means either (i) a street
				  address, route number (may include box) or PO Box number plus the city, state
				  and zip code, or (ii) an address that purports to be a mailing address outside
				  the United States of America.
C.
				  "Amendment Statement" means a UCC record that amends the information contained
				  in a financing statement. Amendments include assignments, continuations and
				  terminations.
D. "Assignment
				  Statement" is an amendment that assigns all or a part of a secured party's
				  power to authorize an amendment to a financing statement.
E. "Division" means the Division of
				  Corporations, UCC & Commissions of the Maine Department of the Secretary of
				  State, Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions.
F. "Expedited Request" means the delivery of
				  a request for an expedited search as further defined in subsection
				  105.
G. "Filing office" and "filing
				  officer" mean the Maine Department of the Secretary of State.
H. "Filing officer statement" means a
				  statement entered into the filing office's UCC information management system to
				  correct an error made by the filing office.
I. "Information statement" means a UCC record
				  that indicates that a financing statement is inaccurate or wrongfully
				  filed.
J. "Initial financing
				  statement" means a UCC record that causes the filing office to establish the
				  initial record of filing of a financing statement.
K. "Remitter" means a person who tenders a
				  UCC record to the filing officer for filing, whether the person is a filer or
				  an agent of a filer responsible for tendering the record for filing. "Remitter"
				  does not include a person responsible merely for the delivery of the record to
				  the filing office, such as the postal service or a courier service but does
				  include a service provider who acts as a filer's representative in the filing
				  process.
L. "Searchable indexes"
				  means the searchable index of individual debtor names and the searchable index
				  of organization debtor names maintained in the UCC information management
				  system.
M. "Secured party of
				  record" includes a secured party of record as defined in the UCC as well as a
				  person who has been a secured party of record with respect to whom an amendment
				  has been filed purporting to delete them as a secured party of record. The term
				  includes the assignor listed on an amendment that purports to be an assignment.
N. "UCC" means the Uniform
				  Commercial Code as adopted in this State.
O. "UCC information management system" means
				  the information management system used by the filing office to store, index,
				  and retrieve information relating to financing statements as described in
				  Section 3 of these rules.
P. "UCC
				  record" means an initial financing statement, an amendment, an assignment, a
				  continuation statement, a termination statement, a filing officer statement or
				  an information statement, and includes a record thereof maintained by the
				  filing office. The term shall not be deemed to refer exclusively to paper or
				  paper-based writings.
Q. "Unlapsed
				  record" means a UCC record that has been stored and indexed in the UCC
				  information management system, but has not yet lapsed under UCC Section 9-1515
				  with respect to all secured parties of record.
101 Means to deliver UCC records; time of filing.
UCC records may be tendered for filing at the filing office as follows.
A.
Personal delivery by
				  remitter, at the filing office's street address.
The file time for a UCC
				  record delivered by this method is, notwithstanding the time of delivery, 5
				  p.m. on the day of delivery.
B.
Courier delivery by a person other than a remitter, at the filing
				  office's street address.
The file time for a UCC record delivered by this
				  method is, notwithstanding the time of delivery, 5 p.m. following the time of
				  delivery (even though the UCC record may not yet have been accepted for filing
				  and may be subsequently rejected).A UCC record delivered after regular business
				  hours or on a day the filing office is not open for business will have a filing
				  time of the close of business on the next day the filing office is open for
				  business.
C.
Postal service
				  delivery, to the filing office's mailing address.
The file time for a UCC
				  record delivered by this method is, notwithstanding the time of delivery, 5
				  p.m. on the day of delivery (even though the UCC record may not yet have been
				  accepted for filing and may be subsequently rejected). A UCC record delivered
				  after regular business hours or on a day the filing office is not open for
				  business will have a filing time of the close of business on the next day the
				  filing office is open for business.
D.
Electronic filing, using the filing
				  office's online UCC filing system.
The file time for a UCC record
				  delivered by this method is the time the filing office's system analyzes the
				  relevant transmission and determines that all the required elements of the
				  transmission have been received in the required format and are machine
				  readable.
E.
Means of
				  communication.
Regardless of the method of delivery, information
				  submitted to the UCC filing office must be communicated only in the standard,
				  printable ASCII (i.e. American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
				  character set, or it will be handled pursuant to subsection 406 of these
				  rules.A financing statement or amendment form that does not designate separate
				  fields for organization and individual names, and separate fields for the
				  surname, first personal name, additional name(s)/initial(s) and suffixes for
				  individual names is not an acceptable means of communication to the filing
				  office.
F.
Transmitting
				  utility, manufactured homes and public-finance transactions.
The only
				  means to indicate to the filing office that an initial financing statement is
				  being filed in connection with a manufactured-home or public-finance
				  transaction, or that a financing statement is being or has been filed against a
				  debtor that is a transmitting utility, is to checkthe appropriate box on a UCC1
				  Financing Statement or to transmit the requisite information in the proper
				  field in an electronic filing of an initial financing statement.
102 Search request delivery.
UCC search
					 requests may be delivered to the filing office by any of the means by which UCC
					 records may be delivered to the filing office. Additionally, search requests
					 may be delivered to the filing office by fax transmission.The requestor must
					 submit a Maine UCC Information Request form for each debtor name to be
					 searched, as provided in Section
					 5 of these rules.
103 Approved forms.
The forms prescribed by 11
					 MRSA §9 - 1521 are accepted by the filing office. Other forms will not be
					 accepted by the filing office.
104 Filing fees.
The fees for filing and
					 indexing a UCC record or processing a UCC search request are prescribed by 11
					 MRSA §9 - 1525.
105 Expedited services and fees.
Expedited
					 services are available for UCC search requests only.Requests for expedited
					 service must be made on the Maine UCC Information Request form.The services and
					 fees are as follows.
A.
Same-day expedited service.
To receive same-day expedited service,
				  the request must be submitted to the filing office between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on
				  a day that the office is open for business, and the search will be processed by
				  5 p.m. on that day.A request submitted between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. on a day that
				  the office is open for business will be processed by 10 a.m. of the following
				  business day.The fee for same-day expedited service is $25.00 per debtor
				  requested.
B.
Next-day
				  expedited service.
To receive next-day expedited service, the request
				  must submitted to the filing office between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on a day that the
				  office is open for business, and the search will be processed by 5 p.m. on the
				  next business day.The fee for next-day expedited service is $10.00 per debtor
				  requested.
106 Methods of payment.
All fees related to UCC
					 records may be paid by the following methods.
A.
Cash.
Payment in cash shall be
				  accepted if paid in person at the filing office.
B.
Checks.
Personal checks,
				  cashier's checks and money orders made payable to the filing office shall be
				  accepted for payment provided that the drawer (or the issuer in the case of a
				  cashier's check or money order) is deemed creditworthy by the filing office in
				  its discretion.
C.
Debit and
				  credit cards.
The filing office shall accept payment by debit and credit
				  cards issued by approved issuers. Remitters shall provide the filing officer
				  with the card number, the expiration date of the card, the name of the card
				  issuer, the name of the person or entity to whom the card was issued and the
				  billing address for the card. Payment will not be deemed tendered until the
				  issuer or its agent has confirmed payment.
D.
Subscription Accounts.
The
				  Information Resource of Maine (InforME) may offer additional payment methods
				  for its subscribers.
107 Overpayment and underpayment
					 policies
A.
Overpayment.
The filing officer shall refund the amount of an
				  overpayment of $5.00 or more to the remitter as provided by policy of the State
				  Controller adopted pursuant to 5 MRSA §1543.
B.
Underpayment.
Upon receipt of
				  a UCC record with an insufficient fee, the filing officer shall return the
				  document to the remitter as provided in Section 203 of these rules.
108 Public records services and fees.
Public
					 records services include the following methods by which any member of the
					 public may obtain copies of UCC records and data from the UCC information
					 management system.Public record services do not include search requests as
					 described in Section
					 5 of these rules. The following
					 methods are available for obtaining copies of UCC records and copies of data
					 from the UCC information management system:
A.
Bulk copies of records.
Bulk
				  copies of UCC records are available on CD-ROM or via ftp. The fee for obtaining
				  UCC records by this method is $.10 per record.
B.
Data from the information management
				  system.
A list of available data elements from the UCC information
				  management system and the file layout of the data elements are available from
				  the filing office upon request.Extracts of data from the UCC information
				  management system are available on CD-ROM or via ftp as follows:
1
Full extract.
A bulk data
				  extract of information from the UCC information management system is available
				  on a weekly or on an as requested basis. The fee for obtaining UCC records by
				  this method is $600 per month or one-time download of the entire data file,
				  plus $600 per month or one-time download of the entire image file.
2
Update extracts.
Updates of
				  information from the UCC information management system are available on an as
				  requested basis. Costs will vary based on the number of records requested via
				  this method.