District Of Columbia § 28:9-520 - Acceptance and refusal to accept record.

§ 28:9-520. Acceptance and refusal to accept record.

28:9-520

Annotations

Example: An initial financing statement is communicated to the filing office. The financing statement names two debtors, John Smith and Jane Smith. It contains all of the information described in Section 9-516(b)(5) with respect to John but lacks some of the information with respect to Jane. The filing office must accept the financing statement with respect to John, reject it with respect to Jane, and notify the filer of the rejection.

5. Partial Effectiveness of Record. Under subsection (d), the provisions of this Part apply to each debtor separately. Thus, a filing office may reject an initial financing statement or other record as to one named debtor but accept it as to the other.

4. Filing Office’s Duties with Respect to Rejected Record. Subsection (b) requires the filing office to communicate the fact of rejection and the reason therefor within a fixed period of time. Inasmuch as a rightfully rejected record is ineffective and a wrongfully rejected record is not fully effective, prompt communication concerning any rejection is important.

If the filing office accepts a financing statement that does not give this information at all, the filing is fully effective. Section 9-520(c). The financing statement also generally is effective if the information is given but is incorrect; however, Section 9-338 affords protection to buyers and holders of perfected security interests who give value in reasonable reliance upon the incorrect information.

3. Consequences of Accepting Rejectable Record. Section 9-516(b) includes among the reasons for rejecting an initial financing statement the failure to give certain information that is not required as a condition of effectiveness. In conjunction with Section 9-516(b)(5), this section requires the filing office to refuse to accept a financing statement that is legally sufficient to perfect a security interest under Section 9-502 but does not contain a mailing address for the debtor, does not disclose whether the debtor is an individual or an organization (e.g., a partnership or corporation) or, if the debtor is an organization, does not give certain specified information concerning the organization. The information required by Section 9-516(b)(5) assists searchers in weeding out “false positives,” i.e., records that a search reveals but which do not pertain to the debtor in question. It assists filers by helping to ensure that the debtor’s name is correct and that the financing statement is filed in the proper jurisdiction.

Subsection (a) both prescribes and limits the bases upon which the filing office must and may reject records by reference to the reasons set forth in Section 9-516(b). For the most part, the bases for rejection are limited to those that prevent the filing office from dealing with a record that it receives-because some of the requisite information (e.g., the debtor’s name) is missing or cannot be deciphered, because the record is not communicated by a method (e.g., it is MIME-rather than UU-encoded) or medium (e.g., it is written rather than electronic) that the filing office accepts, or because the filer fails to tender an amount equal to or greater than the filing fee.

2. Refusal to Accept Record for Filing. In some States, filing offices considered themselves obligated by former Article 9 to review the form and content of a financing statement and to refuse to accept those that they determine are legally insufficient. Some filing offices imposed requirements for or conditions to filing that do not appear in the statute. Under this section, the filing office is not expected to make legal judgments and is not permitted to impose additional conditions or requirements.

1. Source. New.