Are you an organisation or individual that provides finance secured by personal property?
Do you lease personal property or supply goods on a retention of title basis?  

Personal property security (PPS) reform brings the different Commonwealth, state and territory laws and registers regarding security interests in personal property under one national system and introduces the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) and a single national online register.

What are personal property securities?

Personal property listed on the PPS Register includes assets that may be used to secure a loan, such as cars, boats, crops and intellectual property. The PPS Register does not include real estate property, such as houses, land or water rights.

Personal Property Securities Register

The PPS Register will allow lenders and businesses to register their security interests. Secured parties, buyers and other interested parties can search the PPS Register to find out if a security interest is registered over the personal property. The PPS Register commences operation in October 2011 as a web-based register that will be accessible to search and register security interests 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What happens to existing security interest registers?

Security interests which are currently registered on a variety of registers will generally be migrated to the national PPS Register.

Buyers

Buyers need to make sure that the personal property they are buying does not have a security interest over it. For example, if you buy a car that still has an outstanding loan, the car could be repossessed by the person who loaned money against it. Buyers will be able to search the PPS Register to see if there are any security interests over personal property they want to buy

Grantors

A grantor is an individual or entity that grants a security interest over personal property to another party. Grantors include those who:

  •  use their personal property as security for a loan, (ie) a secured car loan
  •  use their business assets as security for a loan, (ie) a fixed or floating charge
  •  receive property under a retention of title arrangement
  •  lease personal property from another party for an extended period

Manufacturers and suppliers

Many manufacturers and suppliers sell their product on retention of title terms. Under the PPS rules, a retention of title arrangement is treated as if it were a security interest and the buyer of the goods is treated as if it were the owner, and the sellers rights are those of a secured lender. This means that a manufacturer or supplier who sells on retention of title terms is at risk of losing its ownership interest in the goods if it does not comply with the procedures in the Act. This will require that the manufacturer or supplier register its retention of title arrangement as a security interest on the PPS register within the timeframes required by the Act.