After the commitment becomes irrevocable, which usually means after the closing rather than before it. The category expects money already committed and at risk, so a purchase conditional on a permit transferring puts the closing calendar in charge of the application calendar.
The closing sets the calendar
Sequence problems here are common because the commercial instinct and the evidentiary requirement point in opposite directions. A prudent buyer wants conditions; the analysis wants commitment. The practical route is to identify which conditions can be satisfied early, satisfy them, and let the remainder govern the timeline honestly. Where a regulator controls a step, ask that regulator directly how long the step takes and write the answer down with its date. An application prepared for a closing that then slips by two months is not merely early; it may describe a state of affairs that is not yet true on the day it is read.
Hypothetical example: a purchaser from Roxton Pond agrees to buy a wood-finishing plant in the United States, with closing conditional on the transfer of a state air-quality permit the seller holds for its spray booths and curing ovens. Nobody has asked the permitting authority how transfers are processed or how long they take. That single enquiry reorders the plan: it fixes the earliest realistic closing, which fixes the earliest date the funds become irrecoverable, which fixes the earliest sensible application date. Everything else — travel, the staffing plan, the family’s school enrolment — hangs off that chain rather than off an optimistic assumption.