Time of legal protection and priority
Last updated: 8 March 2024.
The objective of an official registration is to secure legal protection for a creditor towards third parties who have competing rights.
Please note that legal rights officially registered before 1 March 2024 will only have legal protection by date, and not by specific time of day.
Time of legal protection
As of 1 March 2024, a document submitted digitally will have legal protection on the specific time of day (hour and minute) when the Register of Mortgaged Moveable Property receives the legal right. A document sent by post, which we receive before 2 p.m., will be registered the same day that we receive it, and will be given legal protection at 9 p.m. on the same day. If we receive the document after 2 p.m., it will be registered the following working day. Exceptions apply for those days where office hours end before 2 p.m. If so, the documents sent by post will be registered the following working day. For instance, this applies to Wednesday before Easter, as well as Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, whenever these days are weekdays.
Priority
The order of priority follows the The Land Registration Act section 20, and primarily the principle “First in time, first in right” applies. This implies that the legal right which is registered first will, if any clash, have priority over other aquisitions of rights registered on the same day. If several execution proceedings are registered on the same day, the oldest will have priority over the others.
Below you can find some general examples showing which result the time of legal protection might lead to, with regards to priority.
A document submitted electronically will in most cases be given priority over a document submitted by post. This is due to the fact that the electronic document will be given priority on the specific point in time we receive it, while the document submitted by post will be given priority at 9 p.m. on the day we receive it, provided that we received it before 2 p.m. This means that if we receive two documents at the same time, one of them by post and the other digitally, the one we received digitally will be given priority over the one submitted by post.
When we receive a document by post before 2 p.m., it will be given priority over a digital document received after 9 p.m. the same day.
When two documents are officially registered at 9 p.m. on the same day, the documents will be given the same priority. This applies whether the document is submitted by post or digitally. The reason for this is that the digital document is given priority on the specific point in time when we receive it, which in this case is at 9 p.m. The document submitted by post will also be given priority at 9 p.m., provided that we received it before 2 p.m. on the same day. This is the only possible case where an officially registered digital document and an officially registered paper document will be given the same priority.
Execution proceedings and seizures will be given priority over voluntary furnishing of security registered on the same day. This applies whether the documents are digital or paperbased. If we receive a voluntary furnishing of security at for instance 11.32 a.m., a compulsory security which we receive at 12.32 p.m. will be given priority over the voluntary furnishing of security. This will be done in spite of the fact that we receive the compulsory security after the document for the voluntary furnishing of security.
Please note that The Register of Mortgaged Moveable Property cannot give guidance specifically about priority between the various legal rights. This is due to the fact that the register does not have the total overview of conditions which might be relevant in this assessment.