How to Run a Personal Property Security Registry Search in BC

When you buy a business, you want to know whether its equipment, inventory or receivables are pledged to a lender. In British Columbia, much of that information sits in one public registry.

This article explains what a Personal Property Registry (PPR) search shows, how to run one, and how to read the result. A lawyer can help you interpret anything unclear.

This article covers the law of British Columbia.

What the registry records

The BC Personal Property Registry records security agreements under the Personal Property Security Act, commercial liens under the Commercial Liens Act, and buyers' interests in goods left with the seller under the Sale of Goods Act.

Registration of a financing statement perfects a security interest, and it can be registered before the security agreement is made. A search can therefore show a lender's claim that is not yet fully in use.

How to run the search

Under the Personal Property Security Act, a person may request a name search, a serial-number search, a registration-number search or copies of registered documents. For a business, you will usually search the seller's exact legal name, and any business name it uses. Serial-number searches suit vehicles and other serial-numbered equipment.

You can search in person at a Service BC location, through a third-party service provider who may charge extra, or by mailing BC Registry Services the search type and criteria with a $10 cheque or money order payable to the Minister of Finance. Mailed requests get results by return mail only.

Direct online access is limited to professionals with a premium account and is not available to the general public, so a buyer usually searches through Service BC, a mailed request, or a lawyer or search agent.

These are the fees the government lists for each method. Fees change periodically, so confirm the current amount before you pay.

How to read the results

• Who is the secured party (the lender) and who is the debtor?
• What collateral is described: all assets, specific equipment, inventory or receivables?
• How long is the registration in force? Check the expiry or term shown.
• Is the registration recent, which may point to new equipment financing?
• Are there several registrations against the same assets?

Registrations run for 1 to 25 years at $5 per year, or for an infinite term at $500, so an old registration may still be live.

Priority between perfected security interests in the same collateral is generally decided by order of registration, possession or perfection, which is why a prior lender's registration against business equipment, inventory or receivables can rank ahead of a buyer's claim.

Exceptions that change the picture

• A purchase money security interest, which secures all or part of the purchase price of the collateral, can have priority over other security interests in the same collateral and may be perfected within 15 days after the debtor obtains possession, so a recent equipment-financing lender may rank first.
• A buyer of goods sold in the ordinary course of the seller's business takes free of a perfected or unperfected security interest unless the buyer knows the sale breaches the security agreement. This protects customers buying inventory, not a purchaser of the whole business or its assets.
• Builders' liens, family maintenance liens and some other liens are filed with other agencies, so a PPR search alone does not reveal every lien.

If the business owns land, a Land Title Office title search costs $11.06 as at April 1, 2026, with a separate electronic transaction fee for searches through an LTSA account. Property searches cover land only, not equipment or inventory.

What to do next

If the search shows a registration against assets you are buying, do not assume it is a problem or that it is resolved. Ask the seller what the debt is and whether it will be paid out at closing.

A debtor or any person with an interest in property within the collateral description may give a written demand that a secured party amend or discharge a registration, and the secured party must register a financing change statement within 40 days. No fee may be charged for complying unless previously agreed. A discharge at closing can be required of the seller's lender this way.

• Search the seller's legal name and business names.
• List every registration and the collateral it covers.
• Ask the seller for payout details and discharge plans.
• Add a closing condition requiring discharges, and have a lawyer draft it.
• Search again close to closing so you see any new registrations.

Frequently asked questions