Written by Paige Myers, an expert loan assistant.
Your Leighton State Bank loan officer and their loan assistant will receive a notification that you have paid off your loan. Leighton State Bank will wait seven days before processing your paid note. The seven days is important to allow time ensuring that the funds you paid the loan off with are good before we release the collateral on your loan. There are fees associated with some collateral being released, which will typically be collected at the time of paying off the loan. After seven days, the bank will send you the note stamped paid and begin the process of releasing your collateral. The paid note is for you to keep for your records.
One common type of collateral is a Security Agreement that you signed at the time of your loan closing. This typically means the bank filed a UCC with the Secretary of State’s office that certifies the bank is lienholder for the items listed in the Security Agreement. The Secretary of State charges $10.00 to terminate the UCC filing. Within the State of Iowa, this is an electronic process on the Secretary of State’s website. You will not receive a notification that the UCC was released. Currently, the State of Iowa does not charge a fee to search UCC filings, if you are curious if the UCC has been terminated you can search your name or the name of your business on the Secretary of State’s website, https://sos.iowa.gov/search/ucc/search.aspx?ucc. You will click on Search Databases, UCC Certified and then enter your name/business name. You may also request a copy of the terminated UCC filing from the bank after it has been filed.
Another item used as collateral is vehicle titles. There is not a fee to remove our lien on titles, however, to provide you with a clean title our lien must be removed. We do this by signing off on the lien and sending it to the County Treasurer to be removed. From there, the title will be returned to you. It is important to be sure the title has your current address if not the treasurer’s office will need to be notified so they can return the title to you. This process usually takes about a week. It is important to keep the title in a secure location as you will need the clean title in order to sell the vehicle.
Your loan may have included a Real Estate Mortgage as collateral. Real Estate Mortgages are released by filing a Satisfaction of Mortgage with the County Recorder’s office. The Recorder’s office charges $10.00 to file the document electronically. You will not receive anything to notify you that the mortgage was released. However, you may request a copy of the recorded Satisfaction of Mortgage after it has been filed. The State of Iowa has an electronic filing system called Iowa Land Records. This system allows Mortgagees (or lienholders) to submit our document for recording and receive the recorded document back within 24 to 48 hours. This is a quicker process than mailing in a Satisfaction of Mortgage and waiting for the release that could take up to a week. You may receive a letter asking you to pick up your abstract if it was left with the bank when your loan originated. When you pick up the abstract, make sure you have a secure location that the document can be stored. It is costly to have an abstract recreated and you will need the abstract whenever the property changed ownership. Safety deposit boxes are available to rent if needed, a Leighton State Bank customer service representative would be glad to assist you in opening one.
If at any time you have questions about the process, please feel free to contact one of our Leighton State Bank loan assistants. We are glad to help you in any way that we can.