Before the PPS Register

Prior to the commencement of the PPSR there were more than 70 different Commonwealth, State and Territory Acts regulating personal property securities in Australia. This meant that the laws and practices around a particular personal property security could differ depening on the state or territory you were dealing in. This created uncertainty and meant that it wasn't always easy working across state borders.

With many different Acts regulating personal properties it also resulted in many different registers. In fact there were over 20 state, territory and national registers holding personal property security interests including current ASIC charges, finance on vehicles lodged with REVs and various state based bill of sale registers.

If you had an interest over an asset, like providing a loan to someone buying a car, in order to be protected you needed to register your interest on the relevant state, territory or national register. Then if your creditor failed to pay you or went into liquidation, you could claim your interest and attempt to recover your losses. The problem was that with so many different registers finding out who else was in the queue was an extremely time consuming and costly process.

What happened to security interests registered before the PPSR?

Data from the previous state and territory registers was migrated to the new PPSR. This includes information that was current at the time of the PPSR commencement date. Some registrations may not have been migrated as they are not registrable on the PPS Register, they may no longer be in force, or they were short term security interests. The previous registers are still accessible for you to search any historical records.