How to discharge your CommBank mortgage

What a discharge authority actually does

When you took the loan out, CommBank registered a mortgage over your property. That registration stays until you tell them to remove it. The discharge authority is how you tell them.

You need one in three situations: you’re selling, you’re moving the loan to another lender, or you’ve paid the loan off and want the mortgage lifted. It’s the same form each time — you just tick a different reason.

How to do it

1. Get the Discharge/Refinance Authority — their own online form. Always use the lender’s copy. Broker and form-filling sites host old versions, and an out-of-date form gets rejected, which costs you the whole processing window.
2. Fill in your loan account number, the property address, and the reason you’re discharging.
3. Have every borrower and guarantor sign it. Most lenders still want a real signature rather than a typed one.
4. Send it to an online form if you're selling; otherwise a PDF you print, sign and email or hand in at a branch.
5. Tell your conveyancer it’s lodged, and give them the date you sent it. They’ll chase the payout figure and book settlement.

CommBank is the only one of the big four with an online path, but it only covers selling. Refinancing still means the printed form.

Selling or refinancing — they aren’t the same

Most pages treat these as one process. They aren’t, and the difference decides who does the chasing.

What it costs

CommBank doesn’t publish a standard discharge fee, and nor do most other lenders. It’s set in your loan contract, so check your letter of offer or the fees and charges booklet from settlement. It comes out of the payout figure rather than arriving as a separate bill.

Two other costs catch people out. The state land titles office charges a registration fee, which your conveyancer passes on. And if you’re still inside a fixed term, break costs are separate from the discharge fee and can run into thousands. Ask for both figures before you commit to a settlement date.

Common questions

Checked against CommBank’s own discharge page on 18 August 2026. Lenders change forms, addresses and timeframes without much warning — if something here doesn’t match what they’ve told you, theirs is right and we’d like to know.