Personal Property Securities (Fees) Determination 2018

The Determination directly affects any person or entity that lodges, searches, amends or maintains PPSR registrations. This includes secured parties (banks, finance companies, equipment lessors, factoring firms), unsecured creditors who conduct due diligence searches before extending credit, insolvency practitioners searching for prior interests, purchasers of used goods checking for existing security interests, and legal practitioners advising on secured transactions. The fee structure also indirectly affects grantors (borrowers, lessees) because the cost of registration is often passed on as part of transaction fees or reflected in interest rates. High‑volume users, such as major banks and asset financiers, are most sensitive to the fee schedule; they may run thousands of searches and registrations each year, making even small differences in unit costs material. The contact centre surcharge particularly affects persons who cannot or will not use the online portal, such as occasional users or those without reliable internet access; they pay more than three times the online rate for each search. Government entities (Commonwealth, State and Territory) are exempt from fees entirely because the Registrar may remit their fees under section 7. The monthly payment in arrears arrangement under section 8 applies only to users who transact regularly and receive a statement of summary; small or infrequent users must pay upfront for each transaction. The report fee under section 6 affects researchers, journalists and litigants who request bespoke data from the PPSR, as the $300‑per‑hour charge can accumulate quickly for complex queries. In economic terms, the Determination imposes a recurring compliance tax on secured lending and asset purchasing: every registration and search has a direct monetary cost that can reduce the net benefit of using the PPSR, potentially pushing some transactions into unregistered (and thus lower‑priority) forms of security.

The Determination itself imposes no substantive duties beyond the obligation to pay the prescribed fee before the relevant PPSR service is provided. Under the Act, an application to register a financing statement must be accompanied by the fee (see section 150(1) of the Act); failure to pay means the Registrar may not process the application and no registration time is allocated, with consequences for priority. Users have the right to apply for registration, amendment, search, maintenance, and reports upon paying the corresponding fee. They also have the right to request written search results free of charge for a previously conducted search (item 14 of the table). The Registrar has the right to remit fees for government entities (section 7) and to approve a credit limit under monthly payment arrangements (section 8(2)). Users who use the contact centre have the right to have the application submitted on their behalf, but must pay the higher contact centre fee. The Determination does not create any substantive consumer protections or rights of review specific to the fee amounts; disputes about fee levels would be dealt with under administrative law or the Act’s general provisions. The fee schedule also creates an implicit right to choose between different fee bands: a user may choose to register for 7 years at $6, or for 25 years at $25, or with no end time at $115. This choice is a right, but it is constrained by the underlying Act’s rules about registration periods. The $0 fee for certain amendments (item 7) effectively grants a right to correct errors or update details without additional cost, as long as the amendment does not extend the end date or add a grantor. However, the Determination does not require the Registrar to refund fees for unsuccessful or erroneous registrations; those risks remain with the user.

The Determination does not impose any penalties or offences of its own. Enforcement is indirect and flows from the Act: if a required fee is not paid, the registration may not be considered effective under the Act, and the secured party may lose its priority over competing interests. For example, if a financing statement is lodged without the correct fee, the Registrar may refuse to accept it, or the registration time may not be allocated, leaving the secured party unperfected. Similarly, if a maintenance fee ($4) is not paid before the registration’s end time, the registration lapses and the security interest becomes unperfected. There is no late fee or interest charge prescribed in this Determination for overdue fees, though the Registrar may suspend access to users who fail to pay under a monthly arrangement. The only enforcement tool mentioned is the Registrar’s power to remit fees, which is a discretionary power conferred by section 7. For government entities, non‑payment is irrelevant because the Registrar can remit the fee. For other users, the practical enforcement is that the self‑service nature of the PPSR portal will not process a transaction unless the fee is paid upfront (except under a monthly arrangement). The Determination thus operates as a precondition to access rather than a penalty regime. Users who attempt to circumvent the fee schedule by entering false information (e.g. misrepresenting the registration period to pay a lower fee) could potentially be liable for offences under the Act relating to false or misleading statements, but those are not addressed in this instrument. In summary, the only “penalty” for non‑payment is loss of registration and the resulting loss of priority, a harsh but entirely private consequence that does not involve the state beyond the registry’s automated systems.

This Determination is made under section 190 of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 and is a legislative instrument. It interacts with the Act by filling in the fee amounts left open by the primary legislation. It also interacts with the Personal Property Securities Regulations 2010, which may prescribe additional forms, procedures and some fees. The Determination should be read together with the Personal Property Securities (Reports) Determination 2011, which specifies the reports that attract the $300‑per‑hour fee. Beyond the PPS framework, the fee amounts affect financial accounting: registration fees and search fees are usually deductible business expenses under tax law. Parties may capitalise registration costs as part of the cost of acquiring a security interest for accounting purposes. Insolvency practitioners dealing with a collapsed company may incur PPSR search fees that are an expense of the administration. The Determination’s fee remission for governments means that state and Commonwealth entities effectively do not face the same marginal cost for using the PPSR, which may encourage more government registrations (e.g. for statutory liens) than would otherwise occur. The fee schedule also interacts with state laws that regulate the cost of consumer credit: if a lender passes on PPSR registration fees to a borrower, those fees must be disclosed under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 or equivalent state regulations. There is no direct interaction with the Corporations Act 2001 fee regime, but secured parties may have to lodge registrations under both the PPSR and the ASIC register for certain company charges (though the PPSR largely replaced the ASIC charges register). The Determination does not create any exemptions from GST or other taxes; the fees are amounts payable to the Commonwealth, not a supply for GST purposes. Overall, this is a minor but operationally important instrument that sits within a web of primary and secondary legislation, government policy on cost recovery, and commercial practice.

The Determination has a short recorded history as shown in the source text. It was made on 28 June 2018 by the then Attorney‑General, Christian Porter, under section 190 of the Act. It commenced on 1 August 2018 and simultaneously repealed the Personal Property Securities (Fees) Determination 2015. The precise fee amounts in the 2018 instrument compared to the 2015 instrument are not stated in the source, but the replacement indicates that the government reviewed and updated the fee schedule after three years of operation. The Determination itself may have been amended by later instruments (the source is the original version, so subsequent amendments, if any, are not captured). Users must check the Federal Register of Legislation for the current compilation. The note in the Determination says all legislative instruments and compilations are registered on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments under the now‑renamed Legislation Act 2003. The Determination does not contain a sunset clause or a specific review date; it continues until repealed or amended. The only prior instrument mentioned is the 2015 Determination, which had a three‑year life. This suggests a pattern of periodic fee updates every few years. The Attorney‑General’s power to determine fees under section 190 of the Act is broad, and changes to the fee schedule are often used to align with actual administrative costs, changes in technology (e.g. cheaper online processing), or broader government cost‑recovery policy. The $115 fee for indefinite registrations, the $6 and $25 bands, and the $4 maintenance fee have all remained consistent in structure from earlier determinations, though the dollar amounts may have increased over time to reflect inflation. The contact centre surcharge and the monthly payment arrangement are also carry‑over features. Without the full amendment history, it is impossible to say whether the 2018 Determination increased or decreased any fees compared to 2015, but the document itself represented a fresh legislative instrument that reset the fee schedule.

The source does not refer to any litigation concerning this Determination or the preceding 2015 Determination. Because the instrument is a subordinate legislative instrument setting administrative fees, it is unlikely to be challenged directly unless a user argues that a fee is not authorised by section 190 of the Act or is unreasonable. Section 190 states that the fee must not be such as to amount to taxation, and must be reasonably related to the cost of registration, searching or other services. In theory, a disgruntled user could seek judicial review if they believed the fees were set at an unreasonably high level and thus not authorised. However, no reported cases are known on this Determination. The broader PPSR fee regime has been the subject of occasional criticism in practice (e.g. that search fees are a barrier to due diligence), but no litigation has resulted. The $4 maintenance fee is so small that it would rarely justify a court challenge. The $115 fee for indefinite registrations might be questioned relative to the $25 fee for 25‑year registrations, but the differentiation likely reflects the infinite registration period and the higher administrative burden. The Determination also allows the Registrar to remit fees for governments, which could raise an equal protection argument if a private plaintiff argued it was discriminatory, but that argument has not succeeded. The absence of litigation history suggests that the fee amounts are generally accepted as cost‑recovery charges and that users prefer to pay the fees rather than challenge them. It also reflects that the PPSR is a monopoly service; users have no alternative but to pay if they wish to use the register. That market position may discourage litigation because the cost of challenging a $2 or $6 fee outweighs any potential benefit. The Determination’s legal vulnerability would be on constitutional grounds (e.g. if a fee were held to be a tax not authorised by the Act), but no such challenge has been reported. Practitioners should be aware that this Determination could be reviewed in the context of a priority dispute if the registration was not effective due to non‑payment, but the fee itself is not the subject of dispute.

Several features of the fee schedule can trap unwary users. First, the $115 fee for a financing statement with no end time is an order of magnitude higher than the 25‑year fee of $25. Many practitioners register all‑assets securities indefinitely, but the cost penalty is significant. If the secured obligation is likely to end within 25 years, paying the $25 fee is cheaper and provides adequate protection. Second, amending a registration to add an additional grantor is not free: it costs the same fee as the underlying registration band. Adding a grantor to an indefinite registration costs another $115. This creates an incentive to name all potential grantors in the initial statement to avoid later amendment costs. Third, extending the end date is also charged at the registration band fee. A 7‑year registration extended beyond 7 years would fall under the $25 band (item 6), but if the registration was originally 7 years, the extension would require paying the $25 fee, not the $6 fee. The fee schedule does not pro‑rate by time; any extension incurs the full band fee. Fourth, the maintenance fee of $4 is payable each time a registration is maintained under s168(1) of the Act. If a registration with a 7‑year end time is maintained at the end of the 7 years for a further period, the fee is $4, but if the user instead amends to extend the end date, they may be charged the $25 band fee. The distinction between maintenance and extension is critical and often misunderstood. Maintenance applies when the registration is kept alive without changing the end date (the end date is automatically extended under the Act). Fifth, the search fee for using a grantor’s details is $2 online, but the same search done using the contact centre is $7. The contact centre is not a premium service; it simply adds $5 to any search application made through the registry’s help desk. Sixth, the report preparation fee of $300 per hour can quickly exceed the value of the data for small queries. The Registrar does not provide an upfront estimate; the user is invoiced after the report is prepared. Seventh, the monthly payment arrangement under section 8 is only available for fees for transactions; the report fee under section 9 is payable on invoice, not on monthly summary. Users may mistakenly assume all fees can be invoiced monthly. Eighth, item 14 allows free written search results only if the applicant has already conducted the search. A request for a written record of a search not previously conducted is not covered. Ninth, the Determination’s definitions do not include the Act’s definition of “registration time” or “end time”, but users must be familiar with those concepts to choose the correct fee band. Tenth, the Determination does not address refunds. If a user pays the $115 indefinite fee but later realises a shorter term would have been sufficient, the Registrar has no obligation to refund the difference. These gotchas reward careful planning and penalise casual or one‑off users.

Compliance with the Determination is straightforward but requires attention to fee categories and payment timing. For each registration, the secured party must determine the appropriate duration band and pay the corresponding fee. Use the online portal to minimise search fees ($2 instead of $7). When lodging a financing statement, choose the longest realistic end time to avoid amendment and maintenance costs later; the difference between $6 (7 years) and $25 (25 years) is small relative to the cost of a later amendment. If the security interest is truly permanent (e.g. a floating charge over a company’s undertaking), the $115 indefinite fee should be paid. When adding a grantor or extending the end date, be prepared to pay the same band fee again. Use free amendments (item 7) for any other changes. To maintain a registration that is about to expire, use the maintenance application under s168(1) of the Act, not an extension amendment, and pay the $4 maintenance fee. The maintenance process automatically extends the registration for a further period equal to the original duration (up to the statutory maximum). Maintain timely records of end dates to avoid lapse. For searches, retain the online receipt to qualify for free written results under item 14. If a written record of search results is needed for litigation or due diligence files, perform the online search first, then request the written record separately at no cost. For custom reports, obtain a quote from the Registrar before requesting the report, and understand that the $300 per hour fee applies for each hour or part of an hour, so a request that takes 30 minutes still costs $300. High‑volume users should apply for a monthly payment in arrears arrangement under section 8, which reduces the administrative burden of paying per transaction. Contact the Registrar to negotiate a credit limit under section 8(2). Government entities should ensure they claim the fee remission under section 7; they should not pay fees and then seek reimbursement. All users should keep records of all transaction fees paid for audit and expense tracking. The Determination is a legislative instrument and may be updated; check the current version on the Federal Register of Legislation. If the fee structure changes, plan internal compliance budgets accordingly. Finally, train staff to recognise the different fee bands and avoid common errors such as paying the $115 fee for a registration that should be 25 years, or missing the maintenance deadline because they assumed the registration would automatically renew.