UCC Lien Monitor — new filings against watched debtors (NY, FL, CO)

Schedule this actor daily and it emits only what is new: UCC-1 / UCC-3 filings recorded against the debtors you watch, or filed by the secured parties you watch, across several state registries. It keeps a seen-state per monitor ID, so a filing is reported once, and it can POST each run's alerts to a webhook.

No login, no paid subscription, no API key. Pay-per-event: $0.005 per run + $0.02 per alert ($20 per 1,000).

Who uses it

• Lenders and factoring companies — know within a day when another creditor files against a borrower or client (a new UCC-1 on your collateral, or an amendment/continuation on a competing lien).
• Credit and risk teams — watch portfolio debtors for new secured debt before the next review.
• Equipment lessors and brokers — track filings by competitors in Colorado (secured-party watch).
• Law firms and search companies — replace manual daily re-searches of the state portals.

State coverage

State	Source	Debtor watch	Secured-party watch	Detail data	Notes
NY	NY Department of State online UCC search (ucc-efiling.dos.ny.gov)	begins-with, organization names	no (portal has no secured-party search)	lien type, status, lapse date, debtor address, secured parties	Cloudflare-gated: needs US residential proxy (default). Filing date filter applied server-side.
FL	floridaucc.com public search API	begins-with, organization names	no (API has no secured-party search)	document type, file date, expiration, secured parties, status Filed/Lapsed	No proxy needed. List rows carry no date, so each unseen filing costs one detail call (capped at 60 per name per run).
CO	Colorado Secretary of State UCC advanced search (sos.state.co.us/ucc)	standard search logic (normalized legal name)	yes	document #, date, debtor, secured party, type, original record #, lapse date	Cloudflare-gated: needs US residential proxy (default). Filing date filter applied server-side. Record images are PDF only, so no address/collateral.

Individual-debtor (last/first name) searches, collateral text and filing images are not emitted by any state.

States checked and skipped (as of 2026-09-28)

State	Why not
CA (bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov)	Imperva/Incapsula challenge on the page and the JSON API from every IP tried.
IL (apps.ilsos.gov/uccsearch)	Search is a form POST; the portal is unreachable from our test network, so it could not be verified end-to-end.
OH (ucc.ohiosos.gov)	Portal returns 403 "Website Maintenance" from all networks tried.
WA (fortress.wa.gov/dol/ucc)	Multi-step ASP.NET wizard gated by reCAPTCHA v3 (server returned 500 without a token).
MI (ucc.michigan.gov)	Search API (cpapi.ucc.michigan.gov) requires an authenticated customer-portal session (401).
TX (SOSDirect), DE, GA (GSCCCA)	Paid, login-only searches.

Input

Field	Default	Meaning
debtorNames	["VERIZON", "AMAZON", "CARNIVAL"]	Organization debtor names to watch. NY/FL: every debtor whose name starts with the text. CO: the registry's standard search logic (use the full legal name).
securedPartyNames	[]	Secured party names to watch (CO only; NY/FL log a skip).
states	["NY", "FL"]	Any of NY, FL, CO.
lookbackDays	30	Only filings dated inside this window count as new. Older unseen filings are recorded silently.
maxNewPerWatch	5	Cap per name per state per run; the rest come out on the next run.
includeDetails	true	Open each new filing for secured parties / lien type (NY, FL).
firstRunMode	emitAll	emitAll emits everything inside the lookback on the first run; baseline records everything and emits nothing, so the next run reports only what changed.
webhookUrl	""	POST target for the run summary + first 50 alerts.
monitorId	default	Separate seen-state per ID (key-value store ucc-monitor-<hash>).
maxItems	10	Overall cap per run.
proxyConfiguration	US residential	Needed for NY and CO.

Output

One record per change:

{
  "state": "NY",
  "filingNumber": "20260911121947-3",
  "filingType": "UCC Lien",
  "filingDate": "2026-09-11",
  "lapseDate": "2031-09-11",
  "status": "Active",
  "debtorName": "Verizon Corporate Services Group Inc.",
  "debtorAddress": "ONE VERIZON WAY, BASKING RIDGE, NJ, 07920, USA",
  "securedParties": [{ "name": "Wilmington Trust Company, ...", "address": "1100 NORTH MARKET STREET, WILMINGTON, DE, 19890, USA" }],
  "collateral": null,
  "originalFilingNumber": null,
  "detailUrl": "https://ucc-efiling.dos.ny.gov/OnlineUCCSearch/OnlineLienInformation?lienId=...",
  "matchedWatch": "debtor:VERIZON",
  "changeType": "new_filing",
  "previousStatus": null,
  "firstSeenAt": "2026-09-29T00:24:08.127Z",
  "monitorId": "default"
}

changeType is new_filing or status_change (NY: Active → Lapsed/Released…; FL: Filed → Lapsed). Colorado rows have no status, so only new_filing is emitted there; UCC-3 amendments appear as their own rows with originalFilingNumber pointing at the UCC-1. Florida has no deep link per filing: open detailUrl (the public search) and look the filingNumber up as a document number.

Recommended setup

1. Run once with firstRunMode: "baseline" and your real watchlist, so the current filings are recorded.
2. Schedule the same input daily (Apify Schedules). Each run costs a few cents and emits only new activity.
3. Add a webhookUrl (Slack, Zapier, Make, your API) to get alerts pushed; the dataset keeps the history.
4. Use one monitorId per portfolio to keep seen-states apart.

The seen-state is capped at 50,000 filings per monitor; the oldest entries are dropped beyond that.