Press Release

Wednesday, April 30, 1997

Released by Nova Scotia Department of Housing and Municipal Affairs

Improvements to Property Registry

Halifax, NS -- A new personal property registry system will be in place in Nova Scotia this fall.

The computerized service will be available province-wide and delivered through ACOL, an on-line service providing electronic access to information maintained by the four provincial governments in Atlantic Canada.

The Nova Scotia Department of Housing and Municipal Affairs signed an agreement today with Unisys Canada to implement the personal property registry system. The agreement builds on a deal signed in May 1996 in Charlottetown between the premiers of the Atlantic provinces and Unisys Canada establishing ACOL.

"This will improve the environment for commercial activities in this province," said Jim Smith, Nova Scotia's Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister. "We’ve taken our original plan one step further by taking the ACOL route. This leaves the door wide open for an Atlantic region registry in the future."

Said David Wagner, President of Unisys Canada: "Through this public-private partnership, we have established 32 jobs in Nova Scotia related to the development of the new personal property system and the ACOL solution."

The benefits of the new system include: a reduction in paper burden and storage costs for Registry operations; self-entry of information by clients, allowing them better control over information transfers into the system; improved search capabilities; improved security and control over personal property records; and an increase in the level of service to clients via the institution of electronic registration and search, a particularly important feature to the business community.