A payout figure is built, not quoted.

Before you accept the figure

• Ask for it itemised. Legal costs are charged per line item, not folded into a round number. A worked example: principal $450,000, interest charged $45,000, less $22,500 already prepaid, plus seven legal items at $660 including GST ($5,082) and disbursements of $1,792.53 — a payout of $479,374.53.
• Check the refund condition and its deadline. Where the figure includes a refund of unused prepaid interest, that refund typically only holds if settlement happens by a specific date. Lock it in inside the stated window or it disappears.
• Check interest against the actual number of weeks on title for caveat and short-term facilities. A missed week is an easy error to catch late and an embarrassing one to bill afterwards.
• Confirm whether a redraw was treated as a repayment. On one facility an extension balance was calculated at $272,000 on the assumption $108,000 had been repaid — the lender’s records showed it had been redrawn back to the borrower, so the true balance was the full $380,000. A redraw is not a permanent repayment.
• Reconcile the lender’s sources and uses line by line. A genuine balancing error found pre-settlement is a negotiating point. Found post-settlement it is the borrower’s problem. One reconciliation caught a $129,950 shortfall between a tranche total and a funder’s implied figure; another caught a $2.155m against $2.080m difference in a borrower’s net-at-settlement figure.
• Lodge the discharge request early. Standard turnaround is around five business days from the request being actioned. Leaving it late jeopardises an already-booked settlement date.
• Re-run the whole funding table if any fee changes. A risk fee coming in materially below the modelled figure has made tens of thousands look “missing” days before settlement.