The official material sets the process and any published timelines, and those are the figures to rely on. The household's own constraint is usually liquidity and the state of its records.
The paperwork is rarely the slow part
Two things are worth separating. Official processing arrangements are described on the government's program page and may change, so read them there and record the date you did. The other timeline belongs to the household. Money committed elsewhere — in a retirement plan, in a note from a business sale, in property that has not yet sold — is not available on the day a decision is made, and arranging liquidity commonly takes longer than the paperwork does. Prior immigration history also takes time to document properly if a refusal has to be explained. A sensible sequence is to confirm current official terms, then confirm eligibility and admissibility, then arrange funds, and only then act. Reversing that order risks paying a non-refundable fee before knowing whether the rest of the file stands up.
Hypothetical example: a conservatory-organ technician expects a property sale to fund the program but the buyer can terminate after inspection. The first review should create a dated decision record for official terms, sale contingencies, identity documents, admissibility review, and the intended payment date. The agreement and title records settle whether cash will be available; a valuation does not. Recheck official material immediately before payment. The typical mistake is starting an irreversible sale before confirming the applicant's own eligibility and the current process, then discovering that a headline timeline was not a commitment.