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Published: 10 October, 2006
Pages: 122

Introduction

The Personal Property Securities Act 1999 (referred to in this paper as the PPSA or the Act) is the principal statute governing security over personal property. It came into force on 1 May 2002 and made such substantial changes to the law which preceded it that many people remain unaware or unsure about its effect.

In particular, the Act included in its scope a number of arrangements which were not traditionally treated as security arrangements by the law. Lessors of personal property, sellers retaining title in goods, and other such parties that did not traditionally need to worry about competing securities because they retained an ownership right in the relevant goods have had to become familiar with the PPSA.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how the PPSA works by working through the following topics:

• scope of the Act;
• attachment of security interests;
• perfection of security interests;
• disposals of collateral;
• priority between security interests;
• enforcement of security interests; and
• conflict of laws.

The paper is principally aimed at those who have limited experience of the PPSA, but are generally familiar with the concepts of security. With respect to each of the topics, we have included discussion of some of the issues raised, a number of which were anticipated prior to the Act coming into force, and some of which have emerged over time.

We have also included case summaries of each of the key New Zealand cases to date.