Key terms: LTV, AIP, affordability

Last updated: 2026-07-26

LTV (Loan-to-Value) is the ratio of the loan to the property’s value. A lower LTV, i.e. a bigger deposit, usually goes with lower interest rates — at the cost of more money tied up in the property; the LTV and deposit calculator works out the deposit and loan at a given LTV. An AIP / Decision in Principle is a lender’s indicative confirmation that they would lend you a certain amount, before you’ve found a specific property. Affordability assessments and stress tests are how lenders check whether you could still manage repayments if interest rates rose. The simple multiplication of income by a multiple, without an affordability assessment, is worked out by the affordability calculator.

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This page is part of the site’s initial skeleton. The summary above is a concise, fact-checked overview — the full, expanded version (with more examples, sources, and detail) will be added as part of the tasks in ISSUES.md (section M4 — Content).