No national pledge register before 2015?

The law of 11 July 2013 on movable securities (hereinafter the "Law") introduced a fundamental reform of the system of movable securities.

You will find this in other articles on our website (see below).

The most important innovation of this reform is the abolition of the requirement of the dispossession of the pledged asset as a constitutive element of a pledge, so that the (non-possessory) pledge will become possible.

This (non possessory) pledge must be entered in a national pledge register, which will be administered by the Mortgage Office of the General Administration of Property Documentation of the Federal Public Service of Finance. The new pledge can be enforced against third parties and ranks from the moment of its registration in the pledge register.

It was expected that this pledge register had to be adopted no later than 1 December 2014 as a computerized database that will be available and can be consulted online.

However, this pledge register will not be operational on this date, since the development of this register takes more time than originally planned.

This delay creates problems with enforceability and in some cases even a legal vacuum. The removal provisions of the Act provided that the current special regulations regarding the pledging on business enterprises and the agriculture privilege would be revoked as from the implementation of the Act.

With the entry into force of the Act on 1 December 2014, it would not only result that new pledges on business enterprises and the agricultural privilege will no longer be possible if the register of pledges is not operational, but also that existing pledges on business enterprises and the agricultural privilege may, in the absence of regulation, disappear or at least lose their enforceability. 

On 5 November 2014, a bill was filed at the initiative of the CD&V, N-VA, Open VLD and MR, to postpone the date of the entry into force of the Act until 1 January 2017.

We will keep you informed about this matter.