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There are a couple of reasons why you might not be able to unbond your DOT. Read on to find the solution to the most common issues.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


The "Unbond funds" action is disabled

There are generally two accounts involved in staking - the stash and the controller account. You can learn more about them in this article.


In order to unbond, or perform other controller-based actions, the controller account must exist under the Accounts page in Polkadot-JS UI.


If you're unsure which one is the controller account for your stash, you can see all of your stash/controller combinations under Network > Staking > AccountsYour controller account will be listed to the right of the stash account.


If it is not in your Accounts page, it will display only the raw address of the controller instead of the account's name, and all the controller-based actions will be disabled, as shown below. 



In order to resolve this you need to restore you controller account from its mnemonic phase or JSON file or change the controller to another account.

Once that's done, and after refreshing the page, you should see the controller with its name and be able to perform all actions.



Insufficient Funds


Your controller needs to have enough transferable balance to pay for transaction fees. Even 0.1 DOT is enough to pay for multiple transactions. 


If your account is inactive, meaning it has zero balance, you need to transfer at least 1.1 DOT to it. The 1 DOT is the Existential Deposit and the additional 0.1 DOT is for the fees.


If your account has balance but all of it is locked, you will need to transfer just a small amount  to be able to pay for fees. 


‼️ IMPORTANT

If your account has a balance of exactly, or very close to, 1 DOT it won't be able to pay for transaction fees and you'll get the same error.

"Insufficient Bond" Error


This error occurs if you try to unbond all of your funds but didn't chill your account first, i.e. stop nominating. To resolve this, click the Stop button first and then you'll be able to unbond successfully. For more information, please read this article.