How to run a PPSR search on business assets before you sell or refinance
Business asset & equipment finance
- $2
- per official search
- Two ways
- serial + grantor
- ACN / ABN
- the grantor search
- AFSA
- runs the register
Before you sell, refinance or audit business assets, a PPSR search tells you exactly what's registered against them — and there are two searches to run, not one.
Search by the asset's serial number (a VIN or a manufacturer's number) to find interests in that specific item, and by the business's ACN or ABN as the grantor to find every registration lodged against the business as a whole. The second one is what surfaces a general (AllPAAP) registration over everything you own.
A serial-number search checks one asset. A grantor search checks the whole business — you usually need both.
Why two searches, not one
The two searches answer different questions, and a registration can show up on one but not the other.
- A serial-number search returns interests registered against that specific asset — the usual way to search a vehicle or a serial-numbered machine.
- A grantor search (by ACN/ABN) returns every registration against the business, including an AllPAAP over all its property.
- Finance registered as an AllPAAP may not appear on a serial-number search at all — which is why a grantor search matters before you treat an asset as clear.
How to run the searches
Search each asset by serial number
Run a $2 PPSR search on each asset's VIN or manufacturer's serial number (ppsr.gov.au). Keep the certificate — it names the secured party and the registration.
Search the business by ACN/ABN
Run a grantor search on the business's ACN or ABN to surface every registration against it, including a general (AllPAAP) interest a serial search won't show.
Read what's registered
For each result, establish whether it's a specific interest in that asset or an AllPAAP over the business, and who holds it. That determines whether you need a discharge or an asset release.
Clear, then confirm
Discharge or release anything that shouldn't remain, then run a fresh search. A certificate showing no security interest is your clean-title evidence for the sale, refinance or audit.
Before a refinance in particular
A new financier will generally want to see the PPSR position before advancing. Searching first tells you whether an existing interest — specific or an AllPAAP that survived a payout — has to be discharged or released before the new facility can take clean priority.
Register for launch updates
How Verexia is designed to assist
Establishing and clearing the PPSR position on business assets is what the planned service covers: running the serial and grantor searches, reading exactly what's registered, and dealing with the secured party to discharge or release it — so your assets carry clean title.
- Searching every asset by serial number and the business by ACN/ABN, so nothing is missed.
- Telling you plainly which interests are specific and which are an AllPAAP over the business.
- Dealing with the secured party and confirming clean title with a fresh search.
The first step will always be working out where you stand. Final outcomes depend on the secured party and the facts of the registration, and no service can promise otherwise. What Verexia will commit to is doing the work and being straight about what's achievable.
Verexia is preparing a service designed to assist with vehicle ownership, finance and PPSR matters. Services are not currently available. Register your interest and we will contact you when the relevant service launches.
Sources: Personal Property Securities Register (ppsr.gov.au) — searching the register and all present and after-acquired property. The PPSR is operated by the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA).