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Com. Code, § 9311 · Chapter 3. Perfection and Priority

Com. Code, § 9311

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d), the filing of a financing statement is not necessary or effective to perfect a security interest in property subject to any of the following:

(1) A statute, regulation, or treaty of the United States whose requirements for a security interest’s obtaining priority over the rights of a lien creditor with respect to the property preempt subdivision (a) of Section 9310.

(2) (A) The provisions of the Vehicle Code which require registration of a vehicle or boat.

(B) The provisions of the Health and Safety Code which require registration of a mobilehome or commercial coach, except that during any period in which collateral is inventory, the filing provisions of Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 9501) apply to a security interest in that collateral.

(C) The provisions of the Health and Safety Code which require registration of all interests in approved air contaminant emission reductions (Sections 40709 to 40713, inclusive, of the Health and Safety Code).

(3) A statute of another jurisdiction which provides for a security interest to be indicated on a certificate of title as a condition or result of the security interest’s obtaining priority over the rights of a lien creditor with respect to the property.

(b) Compliance with the requirements of a statute, regulation, or treaty described in subdivision (a) for obtaining priority over the rights of a lien creditor is equivalent to the filing of a financing statement under this division. Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d), in Section 9313, and in subdivisions (d) and (e) of Section 9316 for goods covered by a certificate of title, a security interest in property subject to a statute, regulation, or treaty described in subdivision (a) may be perfected only by compliance with those requirements, and a security interest so perfected remains perfected notwithstanding a change in the use or transfer of possession of the collateral.

(c) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d) and in subdivisions (d) and (e) of Section 9316, duration and renewal of perfection of a security interest perfected by compliance with the requirements prescribed by a statute, regulation, or treaty described in subdivision (a) are governed by the statute, regulation, or treaty. In other respects, the security interest is subject to this division.

(d) During any period in which collateral subject to a statute specified in paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) is inventory held for sale or lease by a person or leased by that person as lessor and that person is in the business of selling goods of that kind, this section does not apply to a security interest in that collateral created by that person.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 531, Sec. 10. (AB 502) Effective January 1, 2014. Operative July 1, 2014, by Sec. 28 of Ch. 531.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=COM&sectionNum=9311.
Text hash
sha256 cc2e31c052bfc8aa59d07fbb6470f7826ea42a643a362211f0495d8ccc9e2f51
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compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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