The process of registering an interest in a debtors’ property under a General Security Agreement is by way of registering on the Personal Property Securities Register (“PPSR”). The PPSR is an online governmental database which anyone can search to see if a person or entity has security of another person or entity’s assets. It is similar to a lawyer being able to do a title search on a piece of real estate to identify whether a bank has a mortgage registered over the title to that property. The registration process is vital to securing a creditor’s interest in the debtor’s assets under a General Security Agreement. This is because the PPSR system works on a first-in-time basis. Therefore, it is relatively pointless going through the exercise of preparing and signing a General Security Agreement unless you are going to register that interest on the PPSR. That is because if another creditor enters into a security agreement with the same debtor and registers their interest ahead of yours, you will be second in line behind that other creditor, even though you may have signed your General Security Agreement at an earlier date. The registration date is the crucial date.
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