The PPSA Writing Requirement and Priority Among Competing Perfected Security Interests

The writing requirement for non-possessory security interests has been a feature of PPSA legislation in common law Canada from its beginnings. For a non-possessory security interest to attach and become enforceable as against third parties, the debtor must have signed a secu- rity agreement containing a description of the collateral, l After several decades of judicial and scholarly scrutiny, the impact of the writing requirement ought to have been settled. However, in the second edition of their excellent handbooks on the Alberta and British Columbia Personal property Security Acts. Professors Cuming and Wood attribute a priority effect to the requirement which many observers are likely to find surprising. The comment shall take issue with the approach they advocate. The debate, however, raises the larger question of the function of a writing requirement for security agreements in a registry system which does not require registration of the security agreement but simply notice of the security interest created by the agreement. The conclusory portion of the comment will address this larger question.