business and corporation records

Some states put their databases of UCC filings online for free access by the public. Thus you can search by the name of a company to see if it has any UCC filings submitted by creditors.

You'll need to go to the website for a particular state and then locate the page for the Secretary of State office in that state.

The National Association of Secretaries of State has a Web site for locating the home pages of secretary of state offices around the country. Go to:

National Association of Secretaries of State - Contact Roster

California Secretary of State UCC Filings

The California Secretary of State has an online database of Uniform Commercial Code filings, but it requires you to subscribe and pay to retrieve the records.

For information on the service, go to the Secretary of State's UCC Connect Web site.