ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter will examine the case for the introduction of a new personal property security act (PPSA) into Scottish law. My chapter will review the developments to date in this area, particularly the work of the Scottish Law Commission, and offer some thoughts on how things are likely to develop in the future. By way of introduction, it is important to note that Scots law is a mixed system. That does not mean, however, that every part of the law is mixed. Some parts of the law are, some are indistinguishable from English law and some are predominantly civilian. Property law is an example of the latter and, as always in the civilian tradition, the concept of ‘property law’ includes moveables as well as immoveables.1 While the earlier Roman law had a division between law and equity – the latter being the jus honorarium – the later civilian tradition fused them.2 To that fusion Scots law was an heir. There is thus no distinction between legal and equitable rights. (There is equity in the sense of aequitas, but that is not English equity.) Trusts, indeed, exist, but without equity: trust law runs on a predominantly civilian software, but the on-screen are much the same as for English law.3 In the absence of a law-equity division, there is no distinction between legal and equitable security rights.
