How do HELOC work?

I’m based in Australia so I’m simply referring to a LOC that’s being burrowed against the equity of the home.

I understand that once an amount has been used up on the LOC, interest is paid on the amount that’s been consumed right? What I mean is once the LOC is drained (all of the money as been used up), how is it repaid? Do I need to get another loan from the bank to pay it off? I’m not sure how the repayment of the LOC works once it’s been depleted.

So for example, let’s say I take out a $300k LOC and I draw out $2k monthly. Once I first draw out $2k, I need to begin paying interest on the money that I draw out. When you say ‘if you want to repay the LOC pay more than the interest’, how much more do I have to pay?

So if you just pay one more cent than the interest repayment on the amount drawn out of the LOC, that’s the way to repay it? I thought you had to repay the whole amount drawn out. For eg: If you take out a $300k LOC, don’t you have to pay back the whole $300k to the bank? You mentioned that ‘generally you will only need to pay the interest’ but don’t you have to repay the whole $300k principal amount? Could you show me what I’m missing here.

So let’s say I get a $300k LOC and I’ve made all my interest payments and now it’s the end of the loan term and it’s time to pay back the $300k. Wouldn’t I need an additional loan to pay that off? I don’t have $300k of cash. You said earlier I wouldn’t need a new loan as long as I paid a little more than the interest payment required but I’m not seeing how that small extra payment covers the principal.

Definitely, thanks. When you said ‘If you pay more than the interest you will be reducing the loan amount – but might be able to access it for redraw.’, do you mean to extend the LOC? or establish a separate redraw facility? Not sure what you mean by redraw.