Buy-to-let lender Zephyr Homeloans is to no longer charge an upfront application fee.

The lender, owned by Computershare, will remove the charge, which had been £199, with immediate effect until further notice.

The change will apply whether a broker deals directly with Zephyr or goes through one of the 15 packagers that it distributes its mortgages through.

Paul Fryers at Zephyr Homeloans said: “After ten months of Zephyr trading, we’re now moving into the next phase of our growth plan and want to give something extra to brokers, packagers and their clients.

“We understand the pressures on landlords at the moment, so we want to make it easier for more people to benefit from Zephyr’s highly competitive range of buy-to-let mortgages by making access to our products even cheaper.”