Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR)

What is the Personal Property Securities Register?

The Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) is a national online register that can provide information to help protect consumers when they are buying personal property such as cars, boats or artworks (not including land or buildings).

If you check the PPSR before you buy, you can find out if the personal property you are buying has a security interest attached to it. This is important because if you buy property subject to a security interest, it is possible that the person or entity with the security interest will repossess it.

For a small fee you can perform a search which will provide you with a search certificate detailing the results of the search.

What is personal property?

Property may be divided into two main categories: real property and personal property. Real property is land and/or fixtures. Personal property is anything that is not real property. A building would be real property, whereas a computer would be personal property.

What is a security interest?

In a transaction involving the payment of funds or the performance of an obligation, one of the parties might want to secure their position by registering a "security interest" in real or personal property. One common example of a security interest for real property is a mortgage over a house.

In the same way that a bank can register a mortgage over a house, you can also register a security interest in personal property with the national online register (PPSR). Along with registering the interests in the PPSR, you can also search the PPSR for a fee to see if there are any security interests over particular personal property.

The rules for registering a security interest under the PPSR are found in the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) and the Personal Property Securities Regulations 2009.

Why should I register a security interest in personal property?

There are many situation in which it would be beneficial to register a security interest in personal property.

In these situations, there will often be one party (the borrower) that owes money to another party (the lender). The lender is the one who wants to secure the debt by registering a security interest on the PPSR in some personal property belonging to the borrower.

Two common situations include:

• If you are selling goods on credit under retention of title terms, there is a risk that the buyer will go insolvent and not pay you for the goods. To protect yourself, you need to register a security interest in the goods that you are selling to the buyer before you supply.
• If you are leasing goods for a period of more than two years or an indeterminate period you will have a "PPS Lease". If the lessee goes insolvent, even though you are the owner of the goods, the goods you are leasing out may be included as part of the assets in the liquidation. To protect yourself, you could register a security interest in the goods you are leasing out.

If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact our office on 1300 200 101, or email at liveadvisor@mifi.com.au.

Further information can be found at the PPSR website.