Secretary of the State pitches centralized trade-name registry and a $5-to-$10 notary fee increase

Christopher Drake, director of business services in the Secretary of the State's office, told the Judiciary Committee on March 4 that Senate bills 294 and 262 would modernize business filings and notary oversight.

Drake said centralizing the trade-name registry was motivated by a year of live operation of a centralized system in cooperation with town clerks and that the change would make trade-name records searchable online. He explained the present hybrid state: trade names filed prior to 1/1/2025 remain at the town level and must be retrieved from town clerks, while filings after that date are searchable at business.ct.gov. Drake said the law sets an expiration period for older filings and the office has offered to help towns upload records; under the current schedule those old filings will expire five years after the effective date (effectively 12/31/2029).

Drake also described technical fixes to address fraudulent filings and changes to clarify the secretary's authority to create policies and procedures for notary misconduct investigations. On fees, he said raising the notary fee from $5 to $10 reflects that the fee has not been raised in roughly 25 years and would help the office provide regulatory oversight and complaint resolution.

Committee members asked for concrete examples of how centralization will help town clerks and whether older filings would be incorporated. Drake said the centralized registry will "marry" local filings to show relationships between LLCs and trade names and noted staff have been assisting towns that opted in since 2025.

The committee took the testimony, asked follow-up questions about implementation and timelines, and closed the hearing without a vote.