Home » Enforce your security and recover the asset

Enforce your security and recover the asset

Your security is only worth the process you follow when you enforce it.

The borrower has stopped paying and your money is tied up in an asset you cannot simply take. Enforcement is a sequence: confirm the security is properly registered, serve the notices the law requires, then take possession and sell. Each step has a form and a timeframe, and a mistake at any of them can cost you the priority you were relying on. We run that sequence properly, and at the pace enforcement needs.

Speak to a lawyer What is included

Registration checked before you act

Whether your security is effective decides everything after it, so it is the first thing we look at.

Notices that hold

Each step is served in the form and timeframe the law requires, so the sale cannot be unwound later.

A sale you can defend

The price is arrived at in a way you can stand behind if the borrower questions it afterwards.

What does enforcing a security interest actually involve?

A security interest gives you a claim over a specific asset if the borrower defaults, and its strength depends on being registered correctly. For personal property, registration is on the Personal Property Securities Register under the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth) (the Act). A registration containing a seriously misleading error can be ineffective, which leaves you ranking as an unsecured creditor. Enforcement then follows a defined path: default, notice, possession, sale, and an account to the borrower for what the sale produced. The order matters, because a step skipped or taken early is the usual reason an enforcement is challenged.

Speak to a lawyer

What is the PPSR and why does it matter?

It is the national register of security interests over personal property. Registering correctly is what makes your interest enforceable against other creditors, and it decides who is paid first if the borrower fails. An unregistered or defective interest can rank behind creditors who registered properly.

What happens if my registration has an error?

It depends on the error. Something seriously misleading, such as the wrong identifier for the borrower, can make the registration ineffective and drop you to unsecured. Smaller errors may survive. Check before you enforce rather than after.

Do I have to give notice before taking the asset?

In most cases yes, and the notice has a required form and period. Taking possession without the right to do so can expose you to a claim from the borrower, so the sequence is not a formality.

What if the sale does not cover the debt?

You can usually pursue the borrower for the shortfall as an unsecured creditor, and any guarantor under their guarantee. What that is worth depends on what else the borrower has, which is worth assessing before you spend on recovery.

Not sure whether your registration holds?

Send us the security documents and the registration details. We will tell you what priority you actually have before you serve anything on the borrower.

You lent against the asset so it would not come down to goodwill

The borrower has defaulted and the asset you lent against is in their hands rather than yours. You can’t recover it without following a process, and every week of delay is a week the asset depreciates or another creditor moves. What makes it worse is not knowing whether your registration is sound, because that question decides whether you are a secured creditor at all.

We will check whether your registration is effective and what priority it gives you.
We will prepare and serve the default notice and demand.
We will take possession of the secured asset.
We will conduct the sale and account to the borrower for the proceeds.

The paperwork you never expected to rely on is now your whole position

You advanced money against equipment, stock or a property, on terms that looked comfortable at the time. Repayments slowed, then stopped, and the conversations moved from reassuring to unanswered. The asset is still out there, being used, depreciating, and possibly claimed by someone else with a registration of their own. What you need to know first is whether your security is as good as you believed when you lent the money.

What's included in your security enforcement service

Speak to a lawyer

A review of the security documents and the PPSR registration.
Advice on your priority against other registered creditors.
Preparation and service of default notices and demands.
Taking possession of the secured property.
Conduct of the sale and the statement of account that follows it.

A defect in the registration turns a secured lender into an unsecured one

The failures here are procedural, and they are expensive. A registration against the wrong identifier, or one describing the collateral loosely, can be treated as seriously misleading and lose its effect. That drops you behind every properly registered creditor and puts you in the queue with the unsecured ones. Serving the wrong notice, or none, can make the sale itself challengeable, and a borrower who has lost an asset has every reason to look for that. Taking possession without the right to do so exposes you to a claim in conversion. And while all of it is argued about, the asset keeps losing value, which is the one thing nobody can litigate back.

How your security turns back into your money

We start with the registration, because it decides everything after it. If it is sound we tell you so, and if it is defective we tell you that too, along with what can still be done. Then we run the enforcement in order: the default notice, the demand, possession, and a sale conducted so the price can be defended later. The borrower is accounted to properly at the end, which is what closes a matter rather than starting the next argument. What you get is the asset realised, the shortfall quantified, and a file that stands up if the borrower decides to test it.

How an enforcement runs

Check the registration first, then move quickly.

Check the security

We confirm the registration is effective and that you hold the priority you think you do, before anything is served.

Serve the notices

We issue the default notice and demand in the form and timeframe the law requires, so the steps after them hold.

Realise the asset

We take possession, conduct the sale so the price can be defended, and account to the borrower for the proceeds.

Enforcement run in order, starting with whether your security holds

Enforcement is the one part of secured lending where the work done at the start is finally tested, and it is usually the part nobody looked at closely when the loan was written. Lenders tell us the same thing: the deal felt safe because there was an asset behind it.

We are ISO 9001 accredited, so what happens on your file and when you hear about it are defined rather than assumed. In enforcement that is worth more than usual, because the sequence and its timing are the whole of the protection.

Our great lawyer guarantee

Six principles we hold to, whatever you bring us and however long it takes.

Take the time

We listen carefully to understand what you want to achieve, then step you through the advice and the documents.

Share our knowledge

We pass on as much as we can, so you can make your own informed decisions.

Stick to our knitting

We only do what we are good at, so you never pay for our learning.

Work as one team

Someone is always available to answer your question or point you the right way.

Fair pricing

A fixed or capped quote for advice and documents, so you do not carry the price risk.

It is your show

We are in it for a front row seat to witness your success, not for our egos.

Enforce it properly

Send us the loan documents and the registration details. We will tell you whether your security holds and what the enforcement path looks like from here.

Speak to a lawyer 1300 654 590