Getting Cancellation
& Bond Figures

When you sell a property that still has a home loan registered against it, your bank holds a financial claim over that property until every last cent is repaid. Before your conveyancer can begin processing the transfer, they need to find out exactly how much you still owe — that amount is what the industry calls cancellation figures: the total sum required to fully settle an existing mortgage bond, including the outstanding balance plus any accrued interest.

Your conveyancing attorney typically obtains this figure as one of the very first steps after receiving the signed sale agreement. It isn't a rough estimate — it's a precise, bank-issued number that sets the financial mechanics of the entire transfer in motion. Without it, no guarantees can be structured, no funds can be allocated, and no registration date can realistically be planned.

What Are "Cancellation Figures"?

Think of cancellation figures as your financial exit number from your existing home loan. They represent the full amount your bank requires to walk away satisfied — the outstanding capital balance of your bond, plus any interest that has accumulated up to the projected date of payment.

The figure is provided by the bank holding the existing bond (referred to as the "cancellation bank"). They forward it — along with your property's title deed — to the attorneys they appoint to handle the bond cancellation, who then pass it on to your transfer attorney. This chain of communication is precise and cannot be skipped.

Your original title deed isn't sitting in a drawer at home. If you have a bond, the bank holds it — and getting it back is one of the first tasks in the transfer process.

A bank guarantee is the financial backbone of a property transfer. It's the mechanism by which everyone — seller, bond holder, and transfer attorney — can rely on payment arriving at exactly the right moment.

When a buyer obtains a home loan, the bank doesn't simply hand over cash. Instead, they issue a bank guarantee — a written commitment to pay a specified sum to a specified party, triggered by one precise event: the registration of transfer at the Deeds Office.

This conditional nature of the guarantee is what makes the whole system work. Nobody hands over money prematurely. The seller is protected because payment is guaranteed the moment ownership changes. The buyer's bank is protected because money only flows once their client is the legal owner.

What a Valid Guarantee Must Include

Guarantees have a limited shelf life. If the transfer doesn't happen within the window, costs start mounting and documents may need to be reissued.

Most property sales are conditional on the buyer securing a home loan. Until that condition is met, the sale exists in legal limbo — and your conveyancer must tread carefully.

A suspensive condition relating to a home loan typically reads along the lines of: the agreement is conditional upon the purchaser obtaining a loan of a specified amount, secured by a first mortgage bond over the property, within a defined number of days. Until that condition is fulfilled, the agreement has no binding effect.

This has a direct practical consequence: your conveyancer should take only preliminary steps — gathering documents, checking the title deed, making initial enquiries — while the home loan application is being assessed. If the bank ultimately declines the application and the suspensive condition lapses without being fulfilled, the sale agreement falls away entirely. Any work already done at the deeds registry or otherwise cannot be recovered.

Once the bank approves the loan and communicates this in writing, the suspensive condition is fulfilled. The sale becomes fully binding, and the conveyancer can move into high gear — preparing all transfer documents, requesting guarantees, obtaining clearance certificates, and co-ordinating a registration date.

Not every buyer takes out a home loan. When a buyer finances a property from their own resources, the financial mechanics look a little different — and the process can actually be simpler.

In a bond-free purchase, there is no bond attorney involved on the buyer's side, and therefore no guarantee is being issued by a lending bank in the traditional sense. The buyer is responsible for ensuring that the full purchase price arrives in the transfer attorney's trust account — either before registration, or on the day itself.

However, the seller's existing bond — if there is one — still needs to be cancelled in the usual way. The transfer attorney still needs to obtain cancellation figures from the seller's bank and liaise with the cancellation attorneys. The difference is that instead of the buyer's bond bank issuing guarantees, the funds come from the buyer's own reserves.

The title deed retrieval process also changes slightly: once the seller's bond is cancelled and all proceeds are paid, the deeds office issues the new title deed directly in the buyer's name, and since there is no bond registered, it is eventually handed to the new owner rather than to a bond attorney.

After registration takes place, the deeds office transfers funds electronically — in most modern transactions this happens electronically at midnight on the registration date — directly into the trust account of the transfer attorneys. From there, the seller receives their net proceeds after all deductions (rates clearances, bond cancellation costs, agent commission if applicable, and the conveyancer's fees) have been made.

Paying cash for property sounds simple — and in many ways it is — but "cash" in conveyancing has a specific meaning, and there are a few different ways it can be handled.

In conveyancing terms, a "cash sale" doesn't necessarily mean someone arrives with a briefcase of banknotes. It means the purchase price isn't being financed by a registered mortgage bond — the buyer is covering the cost from their own financial resources. Three common arrangements exist:

What Happens to the Money on Registration Day?

Modern South African banking means that once the deeds office marks a transaction as registered, the financial institutions involved receive notification. In cases where a bank guarantee was issued, the bank pays the guaranteed amount electronically — typically processed at midnight on the registration date — directly into the trust account nominated in the guarantee.

Where funds were deposited directly into trust ahead of registration, the transfer attorney simply releases those funds to the relevant parties once registration is confirmed. In either case, the seller can expect to receive their net proceeds (after all costs and deductions) within a short period after registration — your attorney will confirm the exact timing.

One important note for cash buyers: your conveyancer must still attend to all the usual transfer mechanics — FICA verification, rates clearance, transfer duty (if applicable), and lodgement of all supporting documents. The absence of a bond does not reduce these obligations; it simply removes one layer of co-ordination.

Property transfers come with their own language. Here are the terms you're most likely to encounter when navigating bond figures and guarantees.