Personal Property Securities (Fees) Determination 2018

The Personal Property Securities (Fees) Determination 2018 is a legislative instrument made under section 190 of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009. Its role is narrow but important. It sets the fees for particular transactions involving the Personal Property Securities Register, or PPSR.

For business owners and advisers, this instrument is best understood as the PPSR fee schedule. It tells you what is payable for listed registrations, certain amendments, searches, maintenance applications and a specified type of Registrar report. It also sets out when a higher contact centre fee applies for some searches and how monthly payment-in-arrears arrangements work.

Just as importantly, this instrument does not itself create registration obligations. It does not decide whether your contract creates a security interest, whether you should register, or whether your registration is legally effective. Those questions come from the Act and the transaction itself. This Determination deals with cost, not the underlying legal need to use the PPSR.

This instrument matters to any business or adviser that uses the PPSR as part of lending, leasing, supply, asset purchase or credit risk processes. Common users include lenders taking security over business assets, suppliers selling on retention-of-title terms, equipment lessors, buyers of used vehicles or machinery, and professional advisers carrying out due diligence searches.

It also affects businesses after the initial registration step. A registration may later need to be amended, maintained, searched against, or supported by a request for written search results or a copy of a verification statement. If your business has regular PPSR activity, the fee settings can affect workflow design, staff authority limits, customer pricing and monthly administration costs.

Businesses that are usually outside the practical scope of this instrument are those that do not use the PPSR at all. If your business never registers security interests, never searches the register and never requests PPSR reports or maintenance, this Determination is unlikely to affect day-to-day operations.

The fees in this instrument are triggered by specific PPSR transactions listed in the Determination. The main trigger points are when you apply to register a financing statement, apply to register a financing change statement of a listed kind, search the register using one of the listed search methods, apply for maintenance of a registration, or apply for the specified Registrar report.

For registrations, the fee depends on the registration period selected. For financing change statements, the fee depends on the type of amendment and the registration period of the registration being amended. For searches, the fee depends not on the search type alone but also on whether the application is submitted directly or through the contact centre on the applicant's behalf.

There are also trigger points for no-fee items. Some PPSR actions listed in the instrument attract a $0.00 fee, which means staff should not assume every PPSR request carries a charge. That can be relevant when setting internal approval processes or deciding whether to obtain supporting PPSR documents for the file.

Section 4 of the Determination sets out a table of registration and search fees. For financing statements under subsection 150(1) of the Act, the fee depends on the end time selected.

A financing statement that has no end time carries a listed fee of $115.00. A financing statement with an end time of up to the end of the day 7 years after the registration time carries a listed fee of $6.00. A financing statement with an end time of more than 7 years and up to the end of the day 25 years after the registration time carries a listed fee of $25.00.

For financing change statements under subsection 150(2), the fee again depends on the kind of amendment and the registration period involved. If a financing statement with no end time is amended to include an additional grantor, the listed fee is $115.00. If a financing statement with an end time of up to the end of the day 7 years after registration time is amended to extend the end date or include an additional grantor, the listed fee is $6.00. If a financing statement with an end time of more than 7 years and before the end of the day 25 years after registration time is amended, the listed fee is $25.00.

The instrument also expressly lists a $0.00 fee where the financing change statement amendment does not extend the end date or include an additional grantor. That distinction is operationally important. A business should identify exactly what is being changed before assuming a fee applies.

The table also includes an item for attaching a document to a financing statement or financing change statement in applications mentioned in items 1 to 7. That item is marked N/A rather than a separate fee amount.

The Determination lists five search applications under subsection 170(1) of the Act. These are searches using a grantor's details, a serial number by which collateral has been described, the unique identifier allocated to one registered financing statement, the unique identifiers allocated to two registered financing statements, or an earlier nominated time as the search criteria.

For each of those listed search applications, the standard fee is $2.00. However, the instrument creates a higher contact centre fee if the applicant requests the contact centre to submit the application electronically on the applicant's behalf. In that case, the contact centre fee is $7.00.

This difference matters in practice. A business that performs occasional searches may not notice the cost gap, but a business with regular due diligence activity can see a material increase in monthly PPSR costs if staff rely on the contact centre instead of direct electronic searching. Internal process design therefore matters. If your team can submit the relevant search directly, that may avoid the higher fee for the listed search items.

Not every PPSR-related request listed in the Determination attracts a fee. The table sets a $0.00 fee for a request, made in an application under subsection 170(1), for written search results in relation to a previously conducted search of the Register by the applicant. It also sets a $0.00 fee for an application under paragraph 175(b) of the Act for a copy of a verification statement.

Section 5 separately sets the maintenance fee. The fee to apply under subsection 168(1) of the Act for the maintenance of a registration is $4.00.

Section 6 deals with a specified report by the Registrar. The fee to apply under subsection 176(1) of the Act to obtain the report mentioned in item 2 of the table in section 4 of the Personal Property Securities (Reports) Determination 2011 is calculated at the rate of $300 for each hour, or part of an hour, of preparation of the report. Because that fee is time-based rather than fixed, businesses should be clear about what report is being requested and should not assume the cost will be nominal.

Part 3 of the Determination sets out payment arrangements. For monthly payment in arrears, the arrangement is that fees for transactions conducted with the registry by a person during a month are payable in arrears on receipt by the person of the statement of summary of transactions, entitled PPSR statement/invoice, for the fees. The Registrar may approve an amount that may be incurred under that arrangement.

There is a separate arrangement for the specified report mentioned in section 6. That fee is payable on receipt by the applicant of an invoice for the fee.

The Determination also gives the Registrar a limited remission power. Despite sections 4, 5 and 6, the Registrar may remit, in whole or in part, the fees payable by the Commonwealth, or a State or Territory government. The text only refers to those government payers. Private businesses should not assume the same remission power applies to them.

For most businesses, the practical value of this instrument is budgeting and process control. The listed fees are generally small compared with the commercial risk that can arise if a PPSR step is missed, delayed or handled incorrectly. A supplier may need to register to support retention-of-title protection. A financier may need to choose an appropriate registration period. A buyer may need a search before settlement. This Determination helps you price those actions, but it does not tell you whether they are legally necessary.

That means businesses should use the instrument in two stages. First, identify the underlying PPSR step required by the transaction and the Act. Second, match that step to the correct fee item. This is especially important for amendments, where the fee outcome changes depending on whether the amendment extends the end date or includes an additional grantor, and for searches, where the fee changes depending on whether the contact centre is used.

Businesses should also remember that fee settings can change over time. The instrument commenced on 1 August 2018. Before relying on a fee amount in a current transaction, check the latest Federal Register version and any later amendments or replacement instruments.

Businesses often confuse this Determination with the broader PPSR rules. The key point is that this instrument sets charges for listed PPSR transactions. It does not itself tell you whether you must register, whether your registration is valid, or whether a search is enough to protect your position in a transaction.

Another common issue is assuming the fee table never changes. The instrument commenced on 1 August 2018 and is shown as in force on the Federal Register entry, but businesses should still check the latest Register version before relying on any amount in a live matter. That is especially important if your team quotes PPSR costs to customers, builds them into finance documents, or processes large volumes of searches and amendments.

The Federal Register entry identifies this instrument as F2018L01001. The text states that it was made on 28 June 2018, registered on 4 July 2018 and commenced on 1 August 2018. On commencement, the Personal Property Securities (Fees) Determination 2015 was repealed.

The Register entry shows the instrument as in force. This page summarises the fee settings and arrangements described in the current public text identified above. Because fee instruments can be amended or replaced, users should check the latest Register version before relying on any amount or process described here.