Beginning Jan. 1, all agricultural and farm-related liens will be centralized in the Arkansas Secretary of State's office, instead of being filed in the 75 individual circuit clerk's offices around the state.
Steve Hollowell, government affairs director with the Secretary of State's office, was in town Thursday, speaking to the Blytheville Rotary Club and visiting the Blytheville and Osceola courthouses to explain the law, passed earlier this year.
Hollowell said liens for the Farm Storage Commodity loan program with the USDA will remain in the the county courthouses for two more years.
Any current filings in counties will remain effective until they lapse, or are terminated, while continuations and amendments will be filed in the Secretary of State's office, Hollowell said.
In 2001, there was a national push to centralize all Uniform Commercial Code System (UCC) filings -- a lien notification system for debtors and secured parties -- in each state.
"It was the most successful uniform law that was ever proposed in the United States," Hollowell said. "There's a group of lawyers and academics or the National Commission of Uniform State Laws. RA-9 was the most successful rollout of the uniform law. They have centralized the lien system into the secretary of state, one central location. But Arkansas was one of the few states that said they wanted their agricultural liens and farm related liens to remain at the circuit clerk's office."
Since 2001 Arkansas has been nonuniform when it comes to this law, he said.
"All the other states have centralized all that filing," Hollowell said. "In 2009, a large equipment manufacturer or seller of agriculture equipment in the upper mid-West hired a lobbyist and decided they wanted to change Arkansas law to get all these liens centrally located so they wouldn't have to deal with all 75 counties when they're searching liens or filing liens, and they were successful."
He later added, "all this is a process of lobbyists and give and take and all that."
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com