The Question
Getting a sanction letter is a genuine milestone, but it isn't the end of the process — it's the start of a documentation and compliance phase that, done casually, adds weeks the borrower didn't budget for.
The businesses that disburse fastest treat sanction as the halfway point, not the finish, and start preparing the next phase in parallel rather than sequentially.
What Actually Happens After Sanction
- Conditions precedent (CPs) get finalised — the specific list of documents and actions the sanction letter requires before drawdown, which varies by facility and lender.
- Security creation is completed — mortgage registration, charge creation, or pledge documentation, each with its own regulatory timeline that can't be compressed on demand.
- Legal and technical due diligence is finalised — a lender's panel lawyer and valuer sign off independently, on their own schedule.
- Compliance and KYC refresh happens if there's been any gap between application and sanction.
What Actually Slows This Phase Down
- Treating CP fulfilment sequentially instead of in parallel — starting security creation only after legal diligence completes, rather than running both together.
- Underestimating registration timelines for mortgage or charge creation, which run on statutory schedules, not the lender's or borrower's convenience.
- Assuming panel lawyer and valuer sign-off happens quickly — both work through their own queues, independent of transaction urgency.
- Leaving compliance refresh for the end, when it could be running in parallel with everything else.
Questions Worth Asking
Are conditions precedent being tracked as one list with owners and dates, or informally?
Is security creation running in parallel with legal diligence, or waiting for it to finish first?
Has a realistic registration timeline been confirmed with the relevant authority, rather than assumed?
Is there a single point of contact chasing all of this, or is it split across multiple people with no one owning the full picture?
The sanction-to-disbursement gap is almost entirely a project-management problem, not a credit problem — the decision to lend has already been made. What determines whether it takes two weeks or two months is how tightly the conditions precedent, security creation and diligence sign-offs are tracked and sequenced. This is a meaningful part of what execution support actually means in practice within corporate finance advisory, distinct from structuring the deal itself.
Key Takeaways
- Sanction is a milestone, not the finish line — real work remains before disbursement.
- Security creation and legal diligence should run in parallel wherever possible, not sequentially.
- Registration and panel sign-offs run on their own timelines and can't be rushed on demand.
- One person owning the full CP list end-to-end is the single biggest lever on how fast this phase moves.
Closing Perspective
A strong sanction letter is necessary, but the discipline applied in the weeks immediately after it is what actually determines when the funds arrive. Treating this phase with the same rigour as the structuring phase is one of the most underrated levers in the entire financing timeline.