New reforms to personal property securities will affect most businesses across Australia.  Business owners and their advisers need to be aware of how these reforms will affect them.

The Personal Property Securities (PPS) Register commenced on 30 January 2012.

The PPS Register has replaced the majority of Commonwealth, State and Territory registers of security interests in personal property. The PPSR can help to:

• protect security interests in personal property
• inform themselves of personal property that may be subject to a security interest prior to purchase
• negotiate business or consumer loans
• provide credit to retailers and manage credit risk in the supply chain, or
• make investment decisions if they are contemplating the purchase of a business.

From 30 January 2012 the PPS Register is the National register on which security interests will be recorded. The PPS Register can be searched to find out about existing interests as a part of the check to ensure that you can provide a clear title.

If you obtain information through a broker, you should check that your broker will be making arrangements to link to the PPS Register.

Current security interests registered on various Commonwealth, State and Territory registers have been migrated to the PPS Register prior to its commencement. Information regarding the migration of various registers can be found at the Personal Property Securities Register.

Additional information on the PPS Register, such as fact sheets, is available on the Personal Property Securities Register website.