VPRS 8350 Bills of Sale Filed

Bills of Sale were mortgages against personal chattels used extensively by individuals and small business to raise finance.Schedules of the chattels were attached to the bills. The schedules list the grantors' chattels against which a bill was drawn.In those instances when the bill was against furniture the inventory is often given on a room by room basis, sometimes identify the occupant of the room. Towards the end of the series' life the most frequent chattel listed was a motor car, usually identified by reference to car registration and engine number.For businesses, such as hotels, the chattels are of plant (including furnishings) and equipment.Filing proceduresFiling procedures were complicated by strict requirements (specified in the Acts?) on the manner in which records were to be kept and, from c1877, the time within which documents were to be lodged.All Bills were allocated a sequential bill number upon initial lodgement.Between 1864 and 1867 no distinction appears to heave been made between the lodging of a bill with the Registrar-General and its filing. The proclamation of the Act 40 Vic. No.557 established a period of grace between the lodging of a bill and its filing. This period of grace enabled any creditors of the grantor (mortgagor) who so desired to lodge caveats against the registration of the bill as, once filed, the bill gave the grantee (mortgagee) a priority against the chattels identified in the bill's schedule in the event of the grantor's default. Each year the grantee was required to renew the bill by lodging an affidavit, failure to renew caused the bill to lapse and the grantee became and unsecured creditor.To control this process a series of indexes to lodged bills, filed bills, renewals and caveats were created. These indexes provided summaries of the bills including names of the parties, addresses, Type of chattel(s) mortgaged, amount and bill number.Legislative changesThe Chattel Securities Act 1981 repealed Part VI of the Instruments Act 1958 which provided the statutory scheme for bills of sale. The relevant provisions of the former Act came into operation on 2 April 1984. The Chattel Securities Act 1987 repealed in turn the 1981 Act including its savings provision. Thereafter, there were no longer any statutory provisions affecting a bill of sale.