The Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR) is the single national register of security interests in personal property.

As set out in our article ‘Seek and you shall find: Pro Tips for an Effective PPSR Search’, there are a number of different searches you can conduct to identify ‘current’ security interests. For example, you can conduct ‘individual grantor’ searches or ‘organisation grantor’ searches to ascertain whether an individual or company has granted any security interests over his/her/its personal property. What these searches do not reveal however is historical security interests (that is, security interests that were previously registered but have since been discharged on the PPSR).

In our experience, it is often the case that a party, particularly insolvency practitioners, will need to know whether at a particular point in time a security interest was perfected by registration. How can you obtain this information?

You can search the PPSR as at a previous point in time, to identify registrations that were current at that earlier date and time. This is called a ‘point-in-time’ search. You can conduct these searches in respect of an individual grantor, organisation grantor and serial number. You can nominate a date and time (to the minute) that you would like the search to reveal.

Unfortunately you cannot conduct a point-in-time search online. You will need the consent of the PPSR Registrar. In order to obtain consent, you will need to contact the PPSR National Service Centre (NSC) and complete and return a form with a fee. If approved, the NSC will conduct the search but it may take up to 3 business days from receipt of the completed form for it to be processed.

ERA Legal is always available to help.  Should you need assistance with conducting PPSR searches or registrations, please do not hesitate to contact us.