The Alberta Personal Property Registry (the “PPR”) has recently advised of a change with respect to PPR registrations in Alberta. Currently, when registering a financing statement (or financing change statement) in Alberta, a mailing address must be provided for each secured party that is included on the registration. An email address field has recently been added to the secured party block for all registrations. Including an email address will be optional, but recommended, until October 15, 2019, at which point it will then become mandatory.

Currently, when a registration is discharged by any party other than the secured party (for example, if a law firm discharges the registration), a verification statement discharge notice (a “Discharge Notice”) is mailed by Canada Post to the secured party. The PPR will begin sending Discharges Notices by email rather than by mail if an email address has been added to a registration.  Discharge Notices will continue to be sent by mail to any secured party without an email address on file. The PPR will also begin sending email notifications to secured parties, if an email address has been provided on the relevant registration, for any renewal, amendment and renewal or amendment that has been registered.

What does this mean for lenders?

The PPR has provided the following tips for simplifying the transition process:

  • any user that uses a “party code” when registering financing statements can request that an email address be added to the user’s organizational details by emailing the organization name and party code along with the email address to add to personalproperty.reg@gov.ab.ca;
  • users with a large volume of registrations (that were registered using a party code) can request that an email address be added to those registrations by completing a global financing change statement (a form of which is available on the Alberta Personal Property Registry Website); and
  • it is not recommended that the email address of a particular individual within the secured party’s organization be used for registration purposes. The PPR recommends creating a dedicated email address that multiple people in the organization can access. That email may (but is not required) to follow a format such as: pprnotices@yourcompanyname.com.