Many of you want the lender to just be willy nilly made into an unsecured creditor vis a vis some third party who, quite frankly, didn't check readily available information like he was supposed to. Instead he called the Snap-on man, who no more knows who has liens on boxes he didn't sell than the sooth sayer in the next town over.
Sorry, but it's quite obvious that it's NOT common knowledge that we have to jump through hoops and call our Secretary of State.
Further, it's also not common knowledge that we may, apparently, have to call OTHER states, because who knows what state that box is registered in.
This is, quite frankly, a ridiculous prospect.
In the vast majority of these cases, as you are all no doubt aware, going against the deadbeat will yield nothing but frustration. The repo of the box, is the only true recourse for the lienholder/lender. If it can be done nonjudicially this, of course, is the best action. So, I think the one thing that is not understood here is that without the system set up the way it is and the right of repossession against all who take from the deadbeat, the deal never gets made in the first place.
The system quite obviously needs major improvement, because it's shafting the 3rd party buyer who assumes he's buying something without a lien on it in good faith.
BTW, what does a title have to do with any of this. Who cares if there is a title? Why is that important? A title is just a piece of paper. The UCC1's are of record and easily searchable.
Because, unlike the supposedly widespread understanding that we need to search the UCC for all 50 states for record of the box being secured, it IS common knowledge that things like motor vehicles are titled. If someone is trying to sell me a 2012 Ford F-350 for $2500 without a title? It's obvious something is fishy.
If they're trying to sell it to me for $2500 and they're holding clear title? Hey, I don't know what the deal is, but I don't care, because that clear title proves the deal is legit. The title isn't released to someone unless the vehicle is paid for, and that
IS common knowledge.
As far as the UCC being "easily searchable" - yeah - they are, but, using Oregon's search here, what exactly would the OP have searched for?
The searchable UCC filings for Oregon show exactly zilch about a box serial number, anything like that.
They show the name of the debtor, the name of the secured party, the date of filing, and the date of lapse. There's nothing to search for about a serial number, etc.
In the case of the OP, he would have been able to search on either the Secured Party (Snap-on) or the Debtor (the guy he bought the box from, which as we know, would have come up with absolutely nothing).
I just searched Snap-on's UCC filings for the state of Washington as well. Same thing. Zero details, only names and addresses and dates of filing.
So, contrary to the nonsense you're telling us, the UCC filing is completely and utterly useless unless the person you're buying the box from is the original debtor, and even then, it doesn't tell you WHAT is secured, it just tells you that there's a UCC filing by a creditor with that person's name on it.
How many stories have we read here where someone bought a new box, but kept their old box to sell, or a story of someone buying a box under a similar situation? How are we to know if the old box is free and clear?
Once again, government bureaucracy and red-tape BS is being used to benefit who?
[Edited to add: Washington, at least, it seems, you can pay $15 for a paper copy of the original report and, if you're lucky, the seller of the item will wait 2 weeks for the bureaucrats to get off their rears and send you the report so you can see if it contains any additional information in it about what may or may not be secured.]
