Welcome to Lawshelf’s video-course on Secured Transactions. This course focused on loans secured by collateral in the form of movable property, the counterpart to mortgages, which are loans secured by real estate as collateral. Secured transactions are governed by Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and so most of the focus of the course is on the provisions of the UCC, but we’ll also give examples and case studies along the way.

This is an intermediate level course and it’s recommended that viewers come in with some background in contracts or sales law. Taking our LawShelf video-course on the basics of contract law should fit the bill.

We’ll start the course by explaining key terms, such as collateral, security interests, debtors and creditors. We’ll also focus on how security interests can be attached and the importance of securing security interests. We’ll also look at security agreements and their provisions.

Module 2 focuses on perfection of security interests, which creates security interests superior to imperfect interests. We’ll look at various ways in which perfection can be accomplished, including filing financing statements (the most common and preferred method of perfection), possession and control.

In Module 3, we’ll look at priorities, or what happens when multiple creditors have security interests in the same collateral. We’ll look at the first-in-time rules and the benefits of filing financing statements to secure priorities. However, we’ll also learn about the superiority of the security interest of the purchase money security interest lender. We’ll also discuss maintenance of security interests and at fixtures, where security interests in land and movable property intersect.

Module 4 discusses the buyer in the ordinary course of business. Since the buyer in the ordinary course is practically exempt from the threat of repossession, we’ll look carefully at how a buyer can attain this status. We’ll also look at the roles of some other players in the collections process, including lien creditors and bankruptcy trustees.

Finally, the last module looks at the mechanics of default and repossession. We’ll look at when self-help repossession is allowed and best practices to ensure the viability of this option. We’ll also look at post-repossession actions, such as selling the collateral to pay the underlying debts.

At the conclusion of this course, you should have a solid foundation in Article 9 of the UCC and we recommend it as a complement to our course on residential mortgages. Together, these courses cover the gamut of the ways in which lenders can use collateral to secure repayment of loans.

Best of luck and we welcome your feedback.