Request By:
Hon. William R. Mapother
Mapother & Mapother
160 Legal Arts Building
200 South Seventh Street
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Joseph R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General
In your letter dated October 8, 1980, you asked the Attorney General the following question:
Do the provisions of 601 KAR 9:075 § 1(1)(a) require that a security agreement be 'certified' by a county UCC filing clerk in order for a secured creditor to acquire a duplicate vehicle registration certificate upon repossession and resale?
601 KAR 9:075 § 1(1)(a) states as follows:
When a secured party takes possession of and disposes of collateral after default, and the collateral is a motor vehicle or trailer currently registered in Kentucky, the secured party, acting on behalf of the purchaser thereof, shall promptly present the following to the county clerk who issued the current sicense plate or, if the vehicle has been transferred, to the county clerk who issued the last transfer for such vehicle:
(a) A certified copy of the security agreement, under which the secured party takes possession of the vehicle, which described and identifies the vehicle. (Emphasis added).
Black's Law Dictionary, Revised Fourth Edition, defines the word "certify" as follows:
To testify in writing; to make known or establish as a fact . . . to vouch for a thing in writing . . . to give a certificate, or to make a declaration about a writing.
Insofar as the above-quoted regulation requires that a certified copy of the security agreement be presented to the county clerk to take possession of a motor vehicle after default, the regulation refers to certification by the creditor himself. This may be accomplished with the creditor attaching his affidavit to the security agreement to the effect that the document is a true and correct copy of the original security agreement. Only the parties to the agreement are in a position to make a declaration as to the authenticity of the security agreement if the agreement has not been previously filed with the county clerk. Therefore, the creditor's affidavit accompanying the copy of the security agreement will satisfy the regulation's certification requirement.