9105. Definitions

(1) In this division unless the context otherwise requires:

(a) "Account debtor" means the person who is obligated on an account, chattel paper or general intangible.

(b) "Chattel paper" means a writing or writings which evidence both a monetary obligation and a security interest in or a lease of specific goods, but a charter or other contract involving the use or hire of a vessel is not chattel paper. When a transaction is evidenced both by a security agreement or a lease and by an instrument or a series of instruments, the group of writings taken together constitutes chattel paper.

(c) "Collateral" means the property subject to a security interest, and includes accounts and chattel paper which have been sold.

(d) "Debtor" means the person who owes payment or other performance of the obligation secured, whether or not he or she owns or has rights in the collateral, and includes the seller of accounts or chattel paper. Where the debtor and the owner of the collateral are not the same person, "debtor" means the owner of the collateral in any provision of the division dealing with the collateral, the obligor in any provision dealing with the obligation, and may include both where the context so requires.

(e) "Deposit account" means a demand, time, savings, passbook or like account maintained with a bank, savings and loan association, credit union or like organization, other than an account evidenced by a negotiable certificate of deposit.

(f) "Document" means document of title as defined in the general definitions of Division 1 (Section 1201), and a receipt of the kind described in subdivision (2) of Section 7201.

(g) "Encumbrance" includes real estate mortgages and other liens on real estate and all other rights in real estate that are not ownership interests.

(h) "Goods" includes all things which are movable at the time the security interest attaches or which are fixtures (Section 9313), but does not include money, documents, instruments, accounts, chattel paper, general intangibles or minerals or the like (including oil and gas) before extraction. "Goods" also includes standing timber which is to be cut and removed under a conveyance or contract for sale, the unborn young of animals, and growing crops.

(i) "Instrument" means a negotiable instrument (defined in Section 3104), or a certificated security (defined in Section 8102) or any other writing which evidences a right to the payment of money and is not itself a security agreement or lease and is of a type which is in ordinary course of business transferred by delivery with any necessary indorsement or assignment.

(j) "Mortgage" means a consensual interest created by a real estate mortgage, a trust deed on real estate, or the like.

(k) An advance is made "pursuant to commitment" if the secured party has bound himself or herself to make it, whether or not a subsequent event of default or other event not within his or her control has relieved or may relieve him or her from his or her obligation.

(l) "Security agreement" means an agreement which creates or provides for a security interest.

(m) "Secured party" means a lender, seller or other person in whose favor there is a security interest, including a person to whom accounts or chattel paper have been sold. When the holders of obligations issued under an indenture of trust, equipment trust agreement or the like are represented by a trustee or other person, the representative is the secured party.

(n) "Transmitting utility" means any person primarily engaged in the railroad, street railway or trolley bus business, the electric or electronics communications transmission business, the transmission of goods by pipeline, or the transmission or the production and transmission of electricity, steam, gas or water, or the provision of sewer service.

(o) "New value" includes new advances or loans made, or new obligations incurred, or the release of a valid and existing security interest, or the release of a claim to proceeds; but "new value" shall not be construed to include extension or renewals of existing obligations of the debtor, nor obligations substituted for such existing obligations.

(2) Other definitions applying to this division and the sections in which they appear are:

"Account." Section 9106.

"Attach." Section 9203.

"Consumer goods." Section 9109(1).

"Construction mortgage." Section 9313(1).

"Equipment." Section 9109(2).

"Farm products." Section 9109(3).

"Fixture." Section 9313(1).

"Fixture filing." Section 9313(1).

"General intangibles." Section 9106.

"Inventory." Section 9109(4).

"Lien creditor." Section 9301(3).

"Proceeds." Section 9306(1).

"Purchase money security interest." Section 9107.

"United States." Section 9103.

(3) The following definitions in other divisions apply to this division:

"Check." Section 3104.

"Contract for sale." Section 2106.

"Holder in due course." Section 3302.

"Note." Section 3104.

"Sale." Section 2106.

(4) In addition, Division 1 (commencing with Section 1101) contains general definitions and principles of construction and interpretation applicable throughout this division.