Pledge without repossession
The pledge is an agreement whereby the pledger grants to a creditor the right to be paid before its other creditors on a fixed asset or a set of present or future tangible fixed assets.
As its name suggests, its special feature is that the debtor retains ownership of the property concerned by the pledge, and is not obliged to hand it over to the creditor.
You can search for a non-possessory pledge in the centralised national database held by the Conseil national des greffiers des Tribunaux de commerce. (National council of Commercial court clerks)
This file contains all the non-possessory pledge registered at registry offices of Commercial courts, the Tribunaux d'instance and grande instance [small claims courts and district courts] that have a commercial jurisdiction in mainland France and overseas départements [French administrative unit] (with the exception of New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna Islands, and Mayotte: for these départements and regions, you must apply directly to the local jurisdictions).
For each non-possessory pledge, this database lists the pledger's name, the category for the pledged asset and the reference of the Registry office where or the registration was made. Using this last data item, the requester can, if they so wish, receive a copy of the registration form.
Registration of non-possessory pledges at the registry offices of the commercial courts are regulated by Decree No. 2006-1804 of December 23, 2006, which came into effect on 1 March 2007.
"Registration is made at the request of the creditor in the Special register kept by the registrar of the Commercial court within the jurisdiction in which the pledger is registered or, if it is not subject to the registration requirement, in the jurisdiction where its registered office or home is located, whichever is applicable. The registrar assigns a cause number to the instrument.
The creditor files or sends to the registrar of the commercial court one of the originals of the constitutive instruments as security, or a copy, if the instrument is drawn up in certified form.
Two copies of a registration form should be enclosed with the instrument.
Click here to obtain a registration form for a non-possessory pledge
1: Use the search form for the national database of non-possessory pledges and fill in the necessary fields:
- Indicate the type of pledger and the mandatory criteria requested, which vary according to the type of pledger. NB: You can use the internal company search function on this page to automatically fill in the mandatory fields.
- Select the category of pledged asset.
- Run your search: the list of registrations in the national database will be displayed.
2: Select the transmission method (email/post) for the registration that you would like to buy. It will be automatically added to the shopping cart. NB: You can also order the debt statement for this company.
3: Click on 'Complete my order' or on the shopping cart at the top of the page and follow the steps in the order tunnel in order to receive your official documents and receipts.
