How to cancel/delete bridge financing because there is no longer a need?

Hello everyone,

for our house construction, we have taken out bridge financing by mortgaging the currently inhabited house.

We have not drawn on the loan yet and no longer need it because we will receive the purchase price for our house earlier.

The ING says I should simply cancel it with a short letter.

The land register does show the mortgage over the corresponding amount.

But I cannot repay anything that I have not yet used.

How do you proceed now? The notarizing notary asked me about the loan, saying the buyers should deduct and settle it directly from the purchase price.

The ING says I should simply cancel it with a short letter.

Uh, why don’t you just do that? You still have an active contract. And you can cancel it, otherwise it won’t end.

How do you proceed now? The notarizing notary asked me about the loan, which the buyers would have to deduct directly from the purchase price and settle.

Yep. And the ING would say exactly €0 is due. Where is the problem? This is a perfectly normal business.

Uh, why don't you just do it? You still have an active contract. And you can cancel it, otherwise it won't end.

Yep. And ING would say exactly 0 € are due. Where's the problem? This is a completely normal business.

I will cancel it, but it doesn't seem to be a common occurrence. To get the answer about the cancellation, I had to wait 15 minutes for a consultation.

No idea, I don't work in a bank and for me this is not a normal business.

But if it's that easy, that's great.

Then thank you very much for your help.

I think it works like with any other land charge. The notary requests a cancellation approval from the respective bank. If there is still an outstanding amount from the loan, the bank instructs the notary to settle this fiduciary before the land charge is cancelled. In your case, the cancellation approval should come immediately. I also don't think that the loan needs to be terminated at all, as this happens "automatically" through the cancellation approval (though it won't hurt). However, I don’t know how this works with interim financing regarding commitment interest.

I think it works like any other land charge.

I have been through this several times already, but the loan was already there, so it was totally unproblematic.

The interim financing was concluded for 2 years, with the option to repay it in full at any time.

The guidelines always only mention termination if the amount has been drawn, but not if nothing has happened yet.

At ING, they told me to simply terminate it; I did so in writing.

I have not received a response yet and no information about whether I have to pay any fees or prepayment penalties or anything like that.

I'll wait and see what comes!

Write to them, as the bank also says, that you will no longer use the bridging loan. This is especially important because otherwise (at some point) commitment interest will be charged for it. Presumably, you will then have to somehow prove that the money is available elsewhere, but then the land charge will also be deleted again. This happens thousands of times a year.

Gebühr oder Vorfälligkeitsentschädigung

Fee yes, prepayment penalty no, because it is not part of the contract.