The two-year transitional period under the PPSA ended on 31 January 2014.
This transitional period gave parties a two-year grace period to register interests created prior to the commencement of the PPSA that are considered security interests under the PPSA but which were not registrable under prior law, termed “transitional security interests”.
Transitional security interests also include security interests that were automatically migrated from pre-PPSA registers (e.g. the ASIC Register of Company Charges or the Vehicle Securities Register) onto the PPSR.
This automatic migration of security interests was not seamless. Certain registrations were migrated with data that did not conform with the data required by the PPSA (although the data was adequate for the previous legislation). In anticipation of such defects, the registrar of the PPSR made a determination, in addition to the two-year transitional period, to ensure that these registrations remained effective temporarily despite a defect (Personal Property Securities (Migrated Security Interest and Effective Registration) Determination 2011).
This temporary period of effectiveness allows secured parties time to amend migrated registrations. If a registration was valid on a previous register and it was migrated across to the PPSR, any defects under the PPSA caused by the migration did not render the migrated registration ineffective.
Importantly, this protection no longer applies after 31 January 2017.
In summary, any old forgotten security interests that were subject to the migration and have unrectified defects will cease to be effective after 31 January 2017.
December 2016