Best MCA debt relief companies in Utah2026 rankings, and the 90 day clock Utah gives you

Escaping an MCA in Utah: the registration file, the confession, and the clocks that close

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Utah is the wrong state to wait in. In most of the country a merchant hears that the confession of judgment he signed at funding is unenforceable paper. Here it is not. Utah Code § 78B-23-102(1) lets parties execute an agreement to confess judgment before default, and subsection (2) voids it only in employment and consumer credit contracts. A merchant cash advance to your LLC is neither. So the funder can put the judgment in on a verified statement, and your entire defense becomes a motion with a deadline on it.

That deadline is short. Utah R. Civ. P. 60(c) gives 90 days for mistake, newly discovered evidence and fraud, and only a reasonable time for a judgment argued to be void. A salon in this state carried $65,000 and closed at $24,700, thirty-eight cents on the dollar, because the paperwork got read while there was still room to move. The advance that is debiting you now has a calendar attached to it, and nobody at the funder is going to point at it.

Why the factor rate is not the argument in Utah

Utah Code § 15-1-1(1) lets the parties to a lawful written, verbal or implied contract agree upon any rate of interest for the contract. The 10 percent in subsection (2) is a gap filler for an agreement that named no rate. It is not a ceiling on one that did.

The consumer credit code is no help either. Utah Code § 70C-1-202(2)(a) writes business and commercial credit, and credit extended to anything other than a natural person, out of Title 70C entirely. Your LLC did not waive a usury defense in the fine print. There was never one to waive.

There is a criminal usury statute, and it looks better than it is. Utah Code § 76-6-520(2) makes it a third degree felony to knowingly engage in, or directly or indirectly finance, the business of making loans at a higher rate of interest or consideration than is authorized by law. It contains no number. It borrows a ceiling from elsewhere in the code, and after 1981 there is nowhere else to borrow one from. A felony with nothing underneath it is a felony nobody charges.

The Commercial Financing Registration and Disclosure Act, and what it is worth

Utah did legislate in this space, and the file it creates is useful. Since January 1, 2023, Utah Code § 7-27-201 has made it unlawful to act as a commercial financing provider in Utah, or with a Utah resident, without registering with the Department of Financial Institutions through NMLS. The Department says in its own published FAQ that an accounts receivable purchase transaction is covered. That is your advance.

Section 7-27-202 forces disclosure before you sign, including the total dollar cost of the financing. Compare what the funder disclosed against the contract you actually signed. A gap there is not merely embarrassing for the funder, it is evidence about how the deal was sold, and it belongs in the settlement conversation.

Now the limits, because a firm that oversells this is a firm to walk away from. Section 7-27-301(4) creates no private right of action. Section 7-27-301(5) says a violation does not affect the enforceability of the agreement. The $500 per violation goes to the state, not to you. Registration is leverage and a complaint route to DFI. It is not a defense that cancels a balance.

Utah enforces the confession, so the clock is the case

Read the mechanics once and you will understand why speed decides Utah files. Section 78B-23-102(1) permits a pre-default agreement to confess judgment. Subsection (2) voids it in employment and consumer credit contracts only. The judgment then goes in under Utah Code § 78B-5-205 on the verified statement of a specified sum that Utah R. Civ. P. 58A(i) requires.

Which leaves you two clocks and one geographic question.

1. Ninety days. Utah R. Civ. P. 60(c) caps a motion on mistake, newly discovered evidence or fraud at 90 days. That is not a guideline. Miss it and those grounds are gone.
2. A reasonable time. A judgment attacked as void under Rule 60(b) has no fixed outer deadline. That is a narrower argument, and it is the one that survives if the 90 days has already run.
3. Thirty days. If the confession was taken in New York and brought here, Utah Code § 78B-5-303(3) bars execution until 30 days after the judgment is filed. That month is when a stay gets sought and a settlement gets built, not when a merchant starts calling around.

Calendar the date the clerk's notice arrives. In Utah the difference between a file worth negotiating and a file worth nothing is measured in weeks.

The blanket lien, the 20 day demand and the affidavit

The financing statement is what stops your bank from refinancing you out of this. Utah Code § 70A-9a-513(3) gives the funder 20 days from your signed demand to file a termination. Send it in writing, keep the proof of delivery, and start counting.

A funder that ignores it pays. Utah Code § 70A-9a-625(5)(d) prices the failure at $500, and § 70A-9a-625 also reaches your proven loss, which on a stale blanket lien is usually the financing you could not get. Then there is the tool most merchants have never heard of: § 70A-9a-513.5 lets you walk a notarized affidavit into the Division of Corporations and Commercial Code and kill a filing that was never authorized, with fees against the funder if it sues to reinstate and loses.

One structural note. Utah Code § 70A-9a-109(1)(c) brings a sale of accounts inside Article 9 regardless of what the parties called it, and § 70A-9a-501(1)(b) puts the filing with the Division. A funder that calls itself a purchaser at the table still filed as a secured party. Make it pick one.

What settlement costs, and what the fee is charged on

The salon file is the arithmetic to hold onto. $65,000 owed, $24,700 paid, $40,300 gone. Fees across this category run 15 to 25 percent, and the percentage matters far less than its basis. Twenty percent of $65,000 enrolled is $13,000. Twenty percent of the $24,700 actually settled is $4,940. Same headline rate, different bill.

Ask three questions in writing before you sign anything. Is any money due before a settlement closes? Is there a monthly administrative or escrow charge stacked on top? Will you put the fee basis in the agreement itself? A performance-only structure puts the firm on the same side of the table as you. Money collected up front does not.

And price the delay. A 1.4 factor on a $50,000 advance debiting five days a week takes the payback out of your deposits whether or not anyone is negotiating. Every week the file sits, the funder collects and your settlement leverage shrinks with the outstanding balance.

What to do in the next seven days

Pull the advance agreements and find the confession of judgment language. If a judgment has already been entered, note the entry date, because Rule 60(c) runs from there and 90 days is not long. Pull 90 days of bank statements showing each debit. Run a UCC search at the Division of Corporations and check every filer against the funders you actually signed with. Look up each funder in NMLS for a Utah commercial financing registration.

Two things not to do. Do not sign a new advance to service an old one; the second funder underwrites off the same deposits and now two ACH files hit the same account. Do not close the account the debits land in without advice, because in most agreements that is a defined default event and it hands the funder its best paragraph.

The claim against you does not go stale quickly. Utah Code § 78B-2-309(1)(b) gives six years on a written contract, and § 78B-2-309(2) restarts it on a written acknowledgment or a payment. An action on a judgment runs eight years under § 78B-2-311, matching the eight year life of a Utah judgment. The clock that will actually hurt you is the 90 day one, and it is the shortest thing on this page.