PPSR registrations – why you shouldn’t ‘set and forget’ your registrations

The Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) is an online register of security interests in personal property, such as cars, goods or business assets. Learn more about what the PPSR is, why you should register security interests and how to register in our previous article here.

If you are a secured party, it is your responsibility to ensure that your PPSR registrations remain up to date. This includes updating any changes in details of the parties or discharging PPSR registrations promptly when they are no longer required.

Updating your Registration

We recommend that you check the expiry dates of registrations and renew before the expiry date.  If a registration is close to expiring, it is important to apply for an extension or renewal prior to the expiration date. If the registration is not renewed or extended prior to this date, the registration will lapse.

Grantor details can also be updated, but there are some aspects of the registration that you cannot update, including:

• The collateral, type and class;
• The existing grantor identifier details;
• Serial number details such as the VIN or chassis number/s; and
• Whether the collateral is a purchase money security interest (PMSI), inventory or subject to control.

For this reason, it is very important that registration details are correct at the time of registration. If you need to lodge a further registration to replace an earlier defective registration, you may lose your earlier priority.

Discharging your Registration

When buying or selling a business or other personal property, it is important to be aware of what PPSR registrations are in existence. For the protection of both vendors and purchasers, PPSR registrations should be discharged before an asset is sold.

If you own a business or are an individual with a security interest registered on the PPSR, it is important that once the loan or obligation associated with registration has been paid out, the registration is discharged. Usually this should take place within five business days.

If the registration is not properly discharged, there may be adverse consequences for the parties involved.  Parties who have granted security interests which have been paid out but not discharged on the PPSR may find the ongoing PPSR registration impacts upon their ability to obtain finance or sell the asset over which the security was granted.

The PPSR also investigate allegations of misuse of registrations, including when secured parties intentionally leave registrations on the PPSR without valid reasons for doing so. This could expose you or your business to a civil penalty under the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth).

How can Coulter Legal assist?

Our experienced Corporate & Commercial lawyers are able to assist you with the preparing security agreements to allow you to register a security interest, registration of and enforcing your security interest on the PPSR. Our lawyers can also update, renew and discharge existing registrations for you.