Broker Clawback: Mortgage Commission Rules 2026

Broker clawback is a lender’s recovery of upfront commission when a home loan is discharged, refinanced or repaid early, usually within two years of settlement. Federal regulations allow a clawback only within that two-year limit and bar passing the cost to the borrower. Inside that limit, each lender sets its own percentages, so the schedule in force when the loan settled decides the amount.

Identify the Clawback Trigger

A clawback starts with a loan event, such as a full discharge, a refinance to another lender, a partial repayment or a default. Regulation 28VG of the National Consumer Credit Protection Regulations 2010 allows a commission repayment obligation when the borrower defaults or wholly or partly discharges the credit contract.

Confirm the event and its effective date from the file before you look at any percentage. The recovery notice gives the lender’s date, and your records show whether it matches.

Loan event	Record that proves it	Date to note
Settlement of the original loan	Settlement statement or lender settlement confirmation	Settlement date and first drawdown date
Full discharge or refinance	Discharge authority, the new lender’s settlement statement or the lender’s discharge confirmation	Date the loan was paid out
Partial repayment	Loan statement showing the lump sum	Date and amount of the repayment
Default	Arrears notices or the lender’s default advice	Date the lender recorded the default

Regulation 28VG starts the two-year clock on the first day credit is provided under the contract. When the new contract refinances other credit, the clock starts once the refinanced credit is made available and the new loan first advances funds. On most purchases and refinances that day is the settlement date, so compare the first drawdown date only on a split or progressively drawn loan.

Worked Example: A Recovery Notice in Month 14

This fictional example applies a lender’s schedule to one recovery notice. Your client settled a $650,000 NAB home loan on 10 October 2024. You received $3,900 of upfront commission, excluding GST.

The client refinanced to another lender, and NAB recorded the discharge on 2 December 2025. Your aggregator statement then shows a NAB clawback of 50%, or $1,950. That’s 13 months and 22 days after settlement, so the discharge fell in month 14.

NAB’s sliding scale took effect on 1 September 2024 for new residential loans settled after that date, as Mortgage Professional Australia (MPA) reported on 6 September 2024. That scale recovers 46% in month 14, which is $1,794 on this loan. The 50% charge matches NAB’s earlier structure for months 13 to 24, so the notice overstates the recovery by $156.

Check the Applicable Schedule

The applicable schedule is the lender’s clawback terms that applied to the loan at settlement, as passed to you under your aggregator agreement. Lenders date their changes differently, so the settlement date alone doesn’t always decide which version applies.

• NAB’s 1 September 2024 scale applies to new residential loans settled after that date.
• Westpac’s 1 August 2023 change applied retrospectively to Westpac consumer home loans settled from 1 February 2022.
• Commonwealth Bank’s 2023 change applied to applications submitted from 1 October 2023, which is an application date rather than a settlement date.

Use that version to set the time band and the recovery basis. The time band is the month or year the loan event falls in, counted the way the schedule counts it. The recovery basis is the share of the upfront commission the schedule recovers in that band.

Two limits in regulation 28VG apply to every schedule. The recovery can’t apply more than two years after the clock starts, and it can’t exceed the commission you were paid. A clawback for a loan event after that two-year point, or for more than the commission received, falls outside regulation 28VG whatever the lender’s schedule says.

Partial Repayments

Check whether the lender’s terms treat a partial repayment as a trigger. Regulation 28VG allows a repayment obligation when the borrower partly discharges the contract, but each lender decides whether its schedule uses that option.

AMP Bank’s stepped policy for residential loans settled from 1 January 2025 applies when the loan is fully or partially repaid or discharged within 18 months, according to MPA. Where a schedule includes partial repayments, check how it measures the repaid amount against the loan before accepting the debit.

Lender Exceptions and Provider-Specific Rules

Check the reason for the discharge separately, because some lenders exclude certain events. ING removed clawback from 1 August 2026 for loans settling from that date when the loan is discharged after the security property sells, 12 to 18 months after settlement. A discharge in that window for another reason, such as a refinance, still sits inside ING’s ordinary schedule.

Where a white-label product or a brand within a banking group has its own terms, those terms decide the recovery. Read the clawback policy for the lender named on the loan contract, not the parent bank’s headline policy.

Compare Named Lender Policies

ANZ, Bankwest, NAB and Westpac each set their own clawback policy, and the regulation 28VG limits are the only rules they share.

Lender	Clawback terms	Date and source
ANZ	ANZ’s residential broker hub publishes no commission or clawback schedule. The ANZ terms in your aggregator agreement set the percentages.	ANZ broker hub, as at October 2026
Bankwest	Clawback is spread over 18 months in even monthly instalments, so the recovered share falls each month.	Described by Loan Market Group’s executive chairman in MPA, 19 October 2023
NAB	50% in month 13, then a sliding scale from 46% in month 14 down to 6% in month 24. Previously 50% applied from month 13 to month 24.	Effective 1 September 2024 for new residential loans settled after that date
Westpac	100% in the first 12 months and no clawback from 18 months. Previously the clawback ran to 24 months, with 50% recovered after the first year.	Effective 1 August 2023, applied to consumer home loans settled from 1 February 2022

The differences change the outcome for the same loan event. A refinance in month 20 triggers no Westpac clawback, because Westpac’s period ends at 18 months. NAB’s scale still recovers a reducing share in month 20, while Bankwest’s 18-month instalments have run out.

Bankwest also overhauled its commission and clawback structure for settlements from 1 January 2021, The Adviser reported on 27 October 2020. For an older Bankwest loan, use the version that applied to its settlement date.

Lender Debit, Aggregator Adjustment and Client Charge

Three different items can appear when commission is recovered, and each one rests on a different source. Separate them before you present any amount as recoverable.

Item	Who recovers from whom	Source that sets it
Lender debit	The lender recovers commission it paid to your aggregator	The lender’s commission and clawback terms that applied at settlement
Aggregator adjustment	Your aggregator deducts the recovery from your commission statement	Your aggregator agreement, including your commission split and how it passes clawbacks through
Client charge	A broker or licensee seeks payment from the borrower	Prohibited by regulation 28VG for commission relying on the broker remuneration exemption

A lender debit and an aggregator adjustment can differ for legitimate reasons, such as your commission split. They can also differ because one side applied the wrong schedule, so check each figure against its own source.

A clawback fee charged to the borrower fails the regulations. Under regulation 28VG, the consumer must not be subject to an obligation to pay an amount because commission was clawed back.

Commission that fails the clawback requirements doesn’t qualify for the mortgage broker exemption from the conflicted remuneration ban. A licensee must not accept conflicted remuneration.

Resolve the Adjustment

Resolve a disputed clawback with a specific discrepancy enquiry that ties the statement line to the loan event and the schedule. Send it through your aggregator, which usually holds the commission relationship with the lender.

1. Quote the statement line, including the loan account, the clawback amount and the statement date.
2. Attach the settlement record showing the settlement date and first drawdown.
3. Attach the discharge, refinance or repayment record showing the event date.
4. Name the schedule version that applied at settlement and the time band the event falls in.
5. State the amount you calculate and the difference from the notice, as in the month-14 example.

Keep Cash-Flow Provisioning Separate From Advice

Provision for clawbacks in your business accounts, away from any client recommendation.

The Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) publishes an annual State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report. Its 2026 report put the median gross clawback per broker at $11,442 for 2025, as MPA reported on 25 September 2026. That figure is a median of aggregator-level responses from five aggregators.

A provision doesn’t change what the client needs. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC’s) Regulatory Guide 273 quotes the explanatory memorandum’s example at RG 273.119. Suggesting a client stay in their loan to avoid a clawback, when they could refinance to a cheaper product, may breach the best interests duty.

When the client’s refinance is suitable, assist with it and treat the clawback as a cost of running the business. If the refinance relies on a new lender’s policy, Bulma quotes the policy wording behind each answer, which you can keep in the file notes for the recommendation.

Evidence Checklist for an Incorrect Time Band

Keep these records together when you dispute the time band applied to a clawback.

• The original settlement statement and first drawdown date.
• The lender’s clawback schedule that applied at settlement, with its effective date.
• The discharge confirmation, new lender settlement statement or loan statement showing the event date.
• The aggregator commission statement showing the original upfront commission and the clawback line.
• Your calculation of the time band and the amount, with the difference from the notice.
• The aggregator agreement clause that sets how clawbacks pass through to you.

Run the dispute alongside the client’s refinance, not ahead of it. Record the remuneration conflict separately from the recommendation, so the client file shows why the refinance suited the client and the dispute sits in your commission records.

The conflict priority rule in sections 158LB and 158LF of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 requires you to put the client’s interests first. RG 273.144 explains when it applies.

The compliance checklist covers the file records that show how you considered the client’s interests. The original upfront entitlement is explained in the mortgage broker commission guide, and ongoing trail is reconciled in the trail commission guide.

What Clawback Means for a Broker

Clawback means taking back money that has already been paid. In everyday terms, a clawback happens when an employer recovers a bonus after the conditions for it are no longer met.

In mortgage commission, a clawback is the recovery of broker remuneration from the broker. It isn’t a charge to the borrower, who deals with the lender’s own discharge or break costs separately. The MFAA’s broker remuneration factsheet, as at October 2026, states that a broker can’t recoup any clawback cost from clients.

A clawback provision, or clawback clause, is the term in the lender’s commission terms or your aggregator agreement that sets the recovery. It names the trigger events, the clawback period and the percentage recovered in each time band. The clawback agreement is the set of documents containing those terms, from the lender’s schedule through to your aggregator’s pass-through clause.

Check the loan event, the original agreement and the recovery notice together before you calculate or dispute an amount. The notice states what the lender applied, the agreement states what should apply and the loan event decides the time band. Confirm the actual clause wording and time bands in the version that applied at settlement, then calculate your figure and raise any difference with your aggregator.