State Registry on Pledge of Movable Property is operative
State Registry on Pledge of Movable Property is operative

Property owners refer to mortgages and foreclosures by using their property as security. Mortgage is imposed on real estate (immovable property) and movable property equivalent to it by law, and it is registered in the official register. In practice, while signing contracts and in other cases specified in the legislation, pledge is imposed on movable property by foreclosures. However, since the pledge on movable property did not have a formal registration system, the pledgees were not able to detect whether there was any other lien on the pledged movable property. Moreover, as the pledge history was not registered in an official system, the priority could not be determined when there was more than one pledge on the property.

On May 2, 2017, the Law of the Republic of Azerbaijan "On the pledge of movable property" was adopted, which envisages the registration of the pledge on movable property with electronic information system and issuing a special registration number.

Registry operations and procedure for maintaining the State Registry of Movable Property (hereinafter - Registry) are now prescribed by the "Regulations for maintaining state register of movable property" approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan dated March 29, 2018.  According to these Regulations, actions on movable property are included in the Registry information, such as the occurrence, any change on a pledge, termination thereof, as well as notifications about any objections against a pledge on movable property.

To use the registry, you need to sign in to https://mpcr.fimsa.az/az with ASAN signature, or sign up as a user (local or foreign physical person or legal entity, as internal user). After registering, you can submit a notification to the Registry, as well as make searches in the Registry.

When submitting the notification to the Registry, information about the type of pledged movable property, the person who accepts the pledge (pledgee), the person who gives the burden (pledger), the subject-matter, the volume of the pledge should be indicated. It should be noted that, most of the information is available to all users. Once the data is submitted, the notification is registered and the registration number for each submission is given. The accuracy of the information included in the Registry should be considered seriously, as the person who submits the information is responsible for its accuracy.

The notification shall come into force from the moment of its appearance in the Registry and remains in force until the date indicated in the notification. The use of the Registry is based on the fee: the fee is 10 manats for submission a notification, and 6 manats for making modifications in a a notification and obtaining a certified hard-copy report about search results.

Although the state Registry of movable property has commenced operations from 15 March 2018, a notification about a pledge that occurred before the start of the Registry may also be entered. Thus, this notification may be included in the system by notifying the person who gives the burden (pledger), but only if the notification is submitted within 9 months of the operative date of the Registry, i.e. until 16 December 2018.