# what exactly does "approved in principle mean"



## ilovepink

hello. 

ive been approved in principal for my mortgage and im wondering how excited can i get.

Can i take it as im "approved" or am i totally off the mark?

valuation has been completed and now getting to the stage of full approval but just wondering of peoples opinions on "approval in principal"

thank you


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## pudds

I would take it as meaning that it seems...'everything is ok'  but we just have to do some final checks.    I wouldn't celebrate yet but it's looking good.


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## doubledeb

We had approval in principal from a ***** lender 4 years ago.  there were 3 things we had to do.  send up the valuation cheque (which was cashed as soon as it was received). Send in the direct debit mandate and photo ID.  We did all of the above and went on a holiday (oh happy days).  Auctioneer was constantly ringing me while on hols asking where the contracts were bla bla.  Anyway got back and rang the bank.  Was told "oh sorry theres been a mistake you were misinformed, your not going to be getting that amount". We'll give ye 30k less.  Low and behold had to go through the whole process again with another institution.  thankfully they were actually human and better at dealing with people.  My point is, sorry to say, but I would only get excited when you get your keys.  A very sinister outlook I know but hindsight and all that...
Good luck with it


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## fizzelina

I agree with Doubledeb, we didn't allow ourselves to get excited until we had signed the contracts and had the loan offer letter from the bank. Incidentally it took us nearly 3 months to go from approval in principle to the bank actually issuing a loan offer letter. Eventually the loan offer letter came and we signed contracts and we were in within 5 weeks but the wait from approval in principle to getting a loan offer letter and the worry of whether it would come was certainly not exciting!


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## NorfBank

These days an approval in principle means nothing really.
A loan offer is better but I would not rely 100% on it.

To be honest, on some mortgages, you sweat until the mortgage cheque is cashed.

Take all of this on a case by case basis though, strong applications still sail through. If your repayment capacity is strong, job is safe, credit profile clean and your loan to value is low then an AIP will move to a loan offer and onto drawdown fairly quickly. If borderline then it's time to sweat unfortunately.


[broken link removed]


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## Mad Bad Babs

I also have 'approval in principal' recently. I must admit i got very excited thinking if you got to approval in principal you were over the hardest hurdle as 2 of my freiends recently didn't even make it to approval in principal. They were turned down flat by brokers who wouldn't even entertain their application until they had cleared loans ect.

I'm really disappointed that it means nothing really. Although my lender has been quite positive re: my application ie saying things like '_*when *_you draw down on your mortgage as opposed to *if *you get to  drawdown'.


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## droileen

"Approval in Principal" dated 4 years ago is not worth the paper it was printed on - It is usually only valid for a period of 3 months.


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## Renter27

droileen said:


> "approval in principal" dated 4 years ago is not worth the paper it was printed on - it is usually only valid for a period of 3 months.



? ?


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