NPRRA Government Affairs Committee

1. NPRRA Government Affairs Committee 2011 Conference, Park City, UT

2. Segment one:RA9 Amendments with Ed Noyer, Director of Product Marketingfor PARASEC

3. Segment two: GAC Current and Future Objectives and Methods

4. GAC (current) purpose To provide a platform to monitor federal, state and county administrative and legislative actions and initiatives, report them and consider possible actions.

5. Primary Issues • Privacy concerns and their impact on access to public records. • Consideration of joining legal actions such as amicus briefs when warranted. • Report trends and actions of state agencies, including reporting of IACA activities and ListServ communications to membership. • Report trends and actions of federal agencies, including reporting of actions pertaining to anti-terrorism, drug-trafficking and money laundering efforts and the impact of pertinent regulations on our industry. • Disintermediation of our industry’s core services through technological advances available to state administrators

6. Duties • Monitoring of local and national initiatives and concerns that may affect members’ business interests. • Creating a stronger relationship with IACA (the association of state UCC and corporate administrators). Maintain an IACA liaison who will report to the GAC as well as Monitor IACA Listserv items. • Working on privacy issues in two ways – first, through our own grass roots efforts and second, through alliances with other public records related associations (i.e. PRIA, NAPBS and REIPA) that share our concerns. • GAC Chair to maintain 5-10 active volunteer members. • GAC Chair to maintain and update GAC group discussion page at Linkedin.com • Maintain an ARA (Association of Registered Agents) liaison who will report to the GAC.

7. Procedures • Listserv posts • Committee Correspondence via email • Committee Correspondence via conference call as needed • Linked in Group (discontinued) • Not enough benefit for just the committee • Email is quicker & more effective • Looking a replacement discussion forum for tracking: Secure blog accessed only via Member side of website? • Newsletter Recaps

8. Committee Membership • New members? • Looking for folks willing to contribute • Occasionally follow up on items with Gov’t agencies • Low stress way to get involved • Committee members are not experts on all the issues. We look to educate ourselves. pass on pertinent info and help make sure membership gets the salient points. Input from knowledgeable members and non-members is welcome and valuable. • Frequent Contributors • Renee Reis (IACA BOC liaison) , Jeff Speredelozzi (IAC STS Liaison), Kevin Roberts (ARA Liaison), David Silverburg, John Robinson, Steve Elias, Blair Wagner

9. Suggestions Make em now or send em to us later. All are welcome. • jeffs@precisioncorp.com • whitney@nprra.org

10. IACA(International Association of Commercial Administrators) NPRRA support and interaction

11. Pros • Maintain presence and communication lines with those whose decisions have the greatest possibility of impacting our interests • Better opportunity for a seat at the table when decisions are being made • Increase positive perception of industry • Opportunity to showcase and further NPRRA’s mission • Provide a voice for all industry players, including small and mid-sized firms who may not be able to justify the IACA expense on their own. (Most if not all larger players are already supporting IACA and attending conferences) • Keep newer IACA members educated regarding our presence and expertise as IACA members rotate over time. With newer members, we have the opportunity to help proactively shape their vision of NPRRA.

12. Cons • Cost • Sending a delegate to IACA conference is estimated at about $ 5000 (approximately 10% of membership dues at our current rate and numbers) • Money could be directed towards other pertinent endeavors • Supporting an organization that does not have our interests at heart and in many cases whose initiatives are in direct conflict with our interests • Legal concerns pertaining to financial support for public officials? (see comment within survey response handout)

13. Segment Three Current Events

14. NY Sales Tax 1 year later • Request for Advisory Opinion abandoned • Member input so far has indicated that NY clients are generally accepting the change without protest or loss. • Whistleblower Rule

15. Proposed Federal Tax lien Registry • Senate Bill # S. 1390 was introduced on 07/20/2011 by Senator Levin (D-MI) and co-sponsored by Senator Mark Begich (D-AK). It proposes creation of a centralized federal tax lien registry, removing the need for filing federal tax liens with state level agencies as well as real estate records. This is similar to a bill that was introduced in 2007 which ended up stalling as the legislature focused on other pressing matters. • Status: referred to Senate Finance Committee  • Timeline: Calls for a Pilot Program within 2 years of the passing of the Act, followed by a 3 month review period, followed by a nationwide test, after which, if successful, an implementation date would be set.

16. PI Licensing Issues Posted by BRB Communications on 8/16/11 • The Illinois Department of Professional Regulation has issued a "cease and desist" letter to a PRRN member based in Illinois for performing public record research and not having a private investigator's license. The Department interpreted that the act of researching public records is considered to be  performing an "investigation." The is regardless if the PRRN Member was merely researching a court's public record docket for an attorney, private investigator, or consumer reporting agency (CRA).  

17. UCC3 RE Addendum • IACA proposed latest forms at their 2011 conference, implementation to coincide with the July 2013 implementation of the new RA9 amendments. • Proposed versions can be found at: http://www.iaca.org/node/145 • Instruction pages are still being tweaked. Our concern regarding having debtor names presented on UCC3s pertaining to real estate was taken into account during the drafting stage with NPRRA participation. IACA has added instruction to section 1b of the UCC3 form (box indicating to be recorded in Real Estate Records), instructing filer to attach form UCC3ad and to include debtor name in box 13 of UCC3ad. We look forward to the final draft of the instruction page.

18. Knock Knock Knockin’ on Levin’s Door • On 08/02/2011 Senator Levin (D-MI) along with Co-sponsor Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), reintroduced legislation pertaining to reporting of beneficial ownership information by corporations and LLCs formed in the U.S.  • Status of S. 1483: referred to Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee • Calls for Implementation by 2014 • Addresses Shelf companies and requires reporting of beneficial owners within 10 days of transfer. • States may license formation agents to acquire & maintain the info, including verification of identity • Exemptions provided for several entity types where beneficial owner info is available through other avenues (such as SEC registration, Non-Profit reporting and several other) • Exempts attorneys or law firms from being considered a formation agent if they use a paid formation agent operating within the US to form the entity.

19. SC UCC Lapse Date • South Carolina implemented a new UCC system earlier in 2011 that considers a filing lapsed as of 12:01 am on the 5th anniversary of the initial file date (unless continued prior). Those waiting until the very last day to continue a filing will find that SC will refuse to accept the continuation.   • example:  Initial filing made 05/20/2006 at 2:00 pm will lapse at 12:01 am on 05/20/2011.  • A filer that shows up at 10 am on the lapse date of 5/20 looking to file a continuation will be out of luck under SC policy. • This is in contrast to the IACA model rule, which is as follows: • 201.2 Last day permitted: The last day on which a continuation statement may be filed is the date upon which the related financing statement lapses. The foregoing rule is subject to the ability of the filing office to take delivery of the continuation statement as tendered and to rule 101. Accordingly, the time of filing of the continuation statement under rule 101 must be on or prior to such last day and delivery by certain means of communication may not be available on such last day if the filing office is not open for business on such day. • SC has not responded to our inquiries as to whether they intend to remedy this situation. We have no indication that any modifications are under consideration.

20. NM UCC Lunch Break • We learned that at some point during the lunch hour of 12-1 p.m. MDT, New Mexico conducts a few minutes of system maintenance each day which causes searches to come back "No Record" regardless of whether or not there are filings on record. We recommend avoiding using the system during this time if possible and we recommend exercising caution when receiving and reporting "No Record" results.NM has posted the following notice on their website: "The UCC Research On-Line application is unavailable between the hours of 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm MDT for routine system maintenance. We recommend that any UCC on-line research be conducted prior to or after the system maintenance." http://www.sos.state.nm.us/sos-ucc.html • It is important to note that you will not see this notice if you follow a link directly to the search value entry page. The notice is posted on New Mexico's general UCC information page. The phrase "application is unavailable" may be inadequate to describe the issue, as the system gives no indication that it is not working properly during this time. It simply returns a "No Record" result. The application itself remains "available" while the actual information pertaining to active UCCs on record may be "unavailable”.