How do I search for UCC liens on a Florida business?

You can search for UCC liens filed against a Florida business or individual through the Florida Secretary of State's FSTR (FloridaUCC.com) portal, or use SunbizStatus to run a combined entity status and UCC lien check in one place.

What is FloridaUCC.com and who uses it?

FloridaUCC.com (officially FSTR Online Filing) is the Florida Secretary of State's UCC lien search portal. It is used by lenders, banks, attorneys, CPAs, title companies, factoring companies, and M&A professionals to check whether a borrower or business has existing liens before extending credit or completing a transaction.

Can lenders check UCC liens on Florida businesses before funding?

Yes. Lenders and banks routinely search the Florida FSTR (UCC) database before extending credit to verify that collateral is not already pledged to another creditor. SunbizStatus provides a direct link to run this check alongside the entity's Sunbiz status.

Buying a Florida Business? Run This Sunbiz Check Before You Sign Anything

Most due diligence checklists for a Florida business purchase focus on financials, leases, and licenses. A five-minute check that's easy to skip — and that can surface a real problem before it becomes your problem — is the seller entity's own status on Sunbiz.

If you're advising on more than one deal at a time, or tracking several acquisition targets for different clients, checking each one manually on Sunbiz.org one at a time is exactly the kind of repetitive lookup a multi-client dashboard is built for: every target entity's status in one place, with alerts if anything changes while a deal is in progress. Here's what to actually check, and why it matters.

1. Confirm the entity's current status — not just that it "exists"

A Sunbiz search returning a result isn't the same as the entity being in good standing. Look specifically for Active status. If it shows Inactive, Administratively Dissolved, or Revoked, that changes the deal.

2. If the seller entity is administratively dissolved, understand what that actually means

Under Florida Statute § 607.1421, a corporation that's been administratively dissolved "continues its corporate existence but may not carry on any business except that necessary to wind up and liquidate its business and affairs" (LLCs have a parallel provision). In plain terms: a dissolved entity isn't legally allowed to be doing ordinary business — which includes negotiating and closing a sale of its assets or interests outside of a winding-up context.

There's a sharper risk underneath that: § 607.1421(4) makes anyone who signs on behalf of a dissolved corporation personally liable for the resulting obligations if they had actual or constructive notice of the dissolution. Courts have held that officers and directors "knew or, because of their position, should have known" — meaning the seller's own principal could be personally exposed for signing a purchase agreement while the entity is administratively dissolved, and you could be buying from someone who arguably didn't have the authority to sell in the first place. If you find a dissolved status, the clean fix is to require reinstatement before closing — not to proceed and sort it out later.

3. Check the registered agent on file

The registered agent's authority survives administrative dissolution, so this is who can legally be served if something goes wrong post-closing. Confirm it's current and matches who the seller says it is — a stale or resigned agent is itself a minor red flag worth asking about.

4. Match any fictitious name (DBA) to the actual filing entity

If the seller operates under a trade name — "Sunshine Detailing" instead of "Sunshine Holdings LLC" — confirm that fictitious name is actually registered to the entity you're buying, not a different entity the seller also controls. Buyers occasionally discover late that the name and the goodwill they thought they were purchasing sits under a separate filer.

5. Run a UCC lien search — separately from Sunbiz

This one catches people off guard: Florida's UCC filings were privatized back in 2001 and aren't searchable on Sunbiz itself. Lien searches, filings, and certified copies go through the Florida Secured Transaction Registry at floridaucc.com, operated under contract by Image API, LLC. A UCC search tells you whether the entity's equipment, inventory, or receivables are already pledged as collateral to a lender — something you want to know before you assume you're buying unencumbered assets.

6. Look at the annual report filing history

A lapsed or late annual report is often the earliest visible sign that a business is winding down informally, changing hands, or simply being neglected before a sale. It's a quick, free signal worth checking even when the current status still reads Active.

7. Cross-check who's actually authorized to sign

Compare the officers, managers, or authorized members listed on Sunbiz against whoever is signing the purchase agreement. A mismatch doesn't automatically mean a problem, but it's a question worth asking before closing rather than after.

Why this matters more when you're running several deals at once

Any one of these checks takes a few minutes for a single target. The friction shows up when an advisor, broker, or firm is tracking several acquisition targets — or a whole roster of client entities — at the same time, re-checking Sunbiz.org one by one and hoping nothing changed since the last look. That's the exact problem SunbizStatus.com's multi-client dashboard solves: every target or client entity in one place, with an alert the moment a status, registered agent, or annual report changes, instead of finding out during closing week that something shifted three weeks ago.

Sources: Fla. Stat. § 607.1421; Fla. Stat. § 605.0717 (LLC dissolution/continued capacity to sue or be sued); Florida Division of Corporations — UCC Information; Florida Secured Transaction Registry.