On June 1st, 2019, amendments to the British Columbia
Personal Property Security Act came into force which will
provide greater certainty to the location of the debtor for certain
types of collateral. With these amendments, British Columbia
followed Ontario in adopting the U.S rules governing the location
of the debtor for security interests in: intangible goods (such as
accounts), mobile goods, or investment property; as well as
non-possessory security interests in negotiable documents of
title, money, or chattel paper.
The location of the debtor is important because it determines
which jurisdiction's law governs the validity, perfection,
effect of perfection and non-perfection, and priority of the
security interest. With greater certainty as to the location of the
debtor, secured parties will be able to better determine which
jurisdiction's laws they must comply with in order to properly
register their interest.
