For trainees and junior lawyers · English law

Security & Collateral

To lend to a family engineering firm, a bank takes security over nearly everything the firm owns. You act for the bank.

How a bank takes security for a loan, taught through one debenture, clause by clause.

A section through a new machining hall. Under a pitched roof and a band of windows, six machining centres stand in a row, alike, each bolted into the cut floor with a plate screwed to its front; the first plate is copper. Beside it a forklift reverses out of the door with a pallet of boxed stock, its back end already past the edge of the drawing.

You will be able to:

  • Read a debenture and say what each clause does
  • Explain what the bank and the borrower each want, and why
  • Follow a loan’s security from signing to its release

10 chapters with tests · a final exam · a certificate · about 4 hours in all · published 17 September 2026

Start Chapter 1

Chapters

Module 1

Why Security

Module 2

The Charges

Module 3

Making It Stick

Module 4

When Things Go Wrong

One case runs through every chapter: a bank lends to a family engineering company and takes security over everything it owns. Read the full Debenture →

Glossary: every term in plain English · Final exam: 30 questions, open book