While everyone in the mortgage and real estate industry is busy this week implementing the new TRID regulations, there's still no standardized pre-approval / conditional loan approval forms for the industry. Mortgage lenders have different definitions of what they consider to be a loan "pre-approval." Some lenders issue a "pre-approval" letter before underwriting or verification of credit docs; others will only issue one after the loan has been through underwriting. And every lender's "pre-approval" letter looks and contains different information, leading to buyer/seller and realtor confusion at times. 

One state had enough of this confusion. The Arizona Association of Realtors implemented a standardized pre-qualification and loan status update form several years ago to combat any ambiguity in lender pre-approval forms and it's worked beautifully to eliminate confusion for all interested parties in a real estate transaction.

https://www.aaronline.com/manage-risk/legal-articles/fillable-forms/

Realtor associations in the other 49 states need to follow suit if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has no plans to regulate this part of the mortgage loan process.