It is now impossible to get a mortgage for any customer who does not have a reasonable sized deposit, so any adviser buying leads where the customer is still asking for a 100% LTV is probably wasting their money.

Lead generators have a moral obligation to provide advisers with leads that have the best opportunity to turn into business and this means providing advisers with consumers that have realistic deposits.

From Monday 21st April Leadbay has therefore reduced the LTV on all its leads for the second time in two months insisting that borrowers have a deposit of a size that lenders are more likely to accept. It makes sure that all borrowers coming through have realistic deposits across every mortgage type or it will not sell them as leads.

This means that advisers have a significantly greater opportunity to earn money on every single lead that they buy; it also refunds the cost of any lead that is uncontactable.

Grant Stevens, Leadbay’s managing director says, “Lead generators have a responsibility to treat their customers, the advisers, fairly; as much as advisers have this responsibility towards their clients.

“Good quality leads means providing advisers with clients who have a realistic sized deposits and this is the reason that Leadbay has twice reduced the LTV on its leads. Good quality leads are essential to advisers at all times, but especially in such tough market conditions and Leadbay’s adviser-led response to these difficult times will greatly assist advisers who purchase leads through them.

“This means Leadbay’s proposition is now significantly better than other lead generators who do not have LTV filters in place, obtain genuine express consent from the consumer or refund uncontactable leads.”

Leadbay currently requires the following maximum LTV for every lead coming through Leadbay:

• Adverse credit 80%
• Buy-to-let 85%
• First-time Buyer 95%
• Purchase 95%
• Remortgage 95%
• Self-cert 85%