Removal of a mortgage loan from the Land Registry

10/05/2022

When you finish repaying a loan, you must take the necessary steps to remove it from the Land Registry. To do so, you must first contact your bank and request a certificate stating that you have paid off the debt in full.

You can either perform the necessary formalities to remove the mortgage yourself or ask your bank to do it for you. In the latter case, as well as assuming the possible administrative costs, the bank may charge you a fee for the service provided. In any case, it must inform you beforehand of the amounts that you will have to assume.

The duration of a mortgage loan is very long and it is possible that over the course of the term of the loan it has been assigned to another bank. In these cases, which bank should you contact to request the notification of discharge once the debt has been paid off?

• If your loan has been assigned to another bank, you must request the notification from the latter.
• If, on the other hand, the bank with which you arranged the loan has transferred management of the debt recovery, it will be responsible for issuing the corresponding notification of discharge.

What happens if the bank in question has merged?

You will have to go to the bank resulting from the merger to request the documentation. You can consult the historical data of the banks (both operating banks and those no longer operating) registered with the Banco de España hereAbre en ventana nueva.

However, if your loan was discharged years ago, you should be aware that, due to the mergers and takeovers that have taken place between financial institutions in recent years, you may have difficulties in obtaining the documentation. In some cases, when mergers take place, loans that have been paid off are not transferred to the new bank.

To avoid incidents of this type, it is important that you keep track of your banking products and that you manage the formalities to remove your mortgage from the Land Registry when you finish paying the corresponding debt.

In any case, to resolve any questions about the removal of a mortgage from a Land Registry, you should contact the Association of Spanish Registrars.