Court Opinion

ID: 9738574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:56:44.306365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:07.004229
License: Public Domain

D. F. Walsh, P.J.,
(dissenting). I must dissent. I concur in the trial court’s conclusion that when the debtor establishes his residence in the county in which the financing statement is filed, the security interest is perfected.
The relevant statute1 provides only that the "proper place to file in order to perfect a security interest * * * when the collateral is equipment used in farming operations * * * [is] the county of the debtor’s residence”. When Blaser moved to Barry County, the county in which the financing statement was filed was also the county of the debtor’s residence. The statute requires nothing more for the perfection of the lien.
The statute does not require that the financing statement be filed in the county in which the debtor resided at the time the security interest attached to the collateral. Presumably if the Legis*59lature had intended such a requirement, it would have so provided.
To engraft such a requirement decisionally is permissible only if a strong discernible policy underlying the enactment of the Uniform Commercial Code were otherwise unattainable. I do not perceive that to be the situation here. The majority, however, citing In re Pelletier, 5 UCC Rptr 327, 335 (D Maine, 1968), concludes that the statute must be thus interpreted in order to insure commercial certainty in this type of transaction. I quote from the majority opinion:
"Since plaintiff has a purchase money security interest, it stands to reason that subsequent purchasers would logically expect that security interest to arise, and be perfected, in the county of the debtor’s residence at the time he acquired the tractor. To hold, as did the trial court, that a previously misfiled financing statement may be subsequently 'cured’ frustrates this logical expectation and introduces uncertainty into our commercial law. 'Courts ought not adopt rules of filing which fail to advance, if they do not actually obstruct, the sole reason for requiring filing — the giving of notice to those not privy to the security transaction.’ Pelletier, surpa, at 335, n 7.”
1 fail to understand how the majority’s interpretation of the statute promotes commercial certainty. As the trial court correctly pointed out, since a debtor could have encumbered the collateral in any county in which he may have had his residence, a prospective purchaser or lender, in order to be safe, must search the records in every county in which the debtor lived during the time he owned the collateral.2 This is true whether the *60statute is interpreted as the majority interprets it or as the trial court did.
The "sole reason for requiring filing [is] the giving of notice to those not privy to the security transaction”. Pelletier, supra, at 335, n 7. Normally, one "not privy” to a prior security transaction has no knowledge of it or of the date on which the security interest may have attached.3 Requiring filing in the county in which a debtor resided on the date a security interest attached pursuant to a security transaction of which a subsequent purchaser or lender has no knowledge would not seem to assist the subsequent purchaser or lender or promote commercial certainty.
In this case, acting upon the information it had received, plaintiff filed the financing statement in Barry County in the belief that filing in Barry County gave the best prospect of notice of the prior lien to a subsequent purchaser or lender. In my judgment that belief was well founded since Barry County was the county in which Blaser was going to live and carry on the farming operation for which he had purchased the tractor.
At the time of filing, plaintiffs security interest was not perfected since Blaser had not yet moved to Barry County. When Blaser became a resident of Barry County, however, all of the statutory requirements for the perfection of the lien were fulfilled.
In my judgment neither commercial certainty *61nor any other desideratum of the Uniform Commercial Code requires that the debtor’s county of residence must be determined at any specific time. All that is required is that the financing statement must be filed in the county of the debtor’s residence. When that is accomplished, the security interest is perfected.
I would affirm.

 MCL 440.9401(1); MSA 19.9401(1).

 With respect to this point the majority opinion states: "Secondly, we overrule the lower court’s conclusion that Michigan law imposes an obligation on prospective purchasers to search the records of every county in which the debtor resided during the life of the collateral.”
*60I find no conclusion in the trial court opinion that Michigan law imposes any obligation on prospective purchasers with respect to searching records, but rather an observation by the trial court that a prospective purchaser, to be safe, must search the records of every county in which the debtor had lived.

 Obviously if a subsequent purchaser or lender did have knowledge of a prior security transaction, no record search would be necessary.