

Ask HN: How about a rental focused credit union - bowyakka

I recently moved to San Francisco to work at a startup part of this was finding and renting a place to live. In short time I found a nice place to live in the city, and, whilst the rent was a bit high I figured that it was part of the growing cost of living in SF.<p>I setup a online cheque from my current account, paying the first payment at the start of December (for December), the second on the 15th (a forward payment for January). Somehow the first cheque went missing, the letting agency assumed that the second cheque was for December and &#x2F;silently&#x2F; cashed it despite it being late..<p>On the 10th of January (Friday) I get a phone call claiming that my account was delinquent. Given the rules of rent control as of Monday a three day eviction will be issued. Naturally this shocked me, I had not received notice of any issues (there was a letter dated 6th, received in the post on the 12th). I phoned the bank to query the cheques, a task made more challenging by the fact that the rental agency does not record cheque numbers.<p>With the missing cheque cancelled I am in a situation where its either a payday loan, or a legal notice. This sounds like a whine, and for that I apologise, rather I am using it to illustrate an industry that needs to be disrupted.<p>How hard would it be to create a startup that was a credit union, bank or clearing house, providing accounts to renters issuing payments under a personal name. The B2C for renters could use any sane payment method, with the backend dealing with this legacy industry. This startup could also cover bonds, offer better legal protection for renters, offer late payment insurance, have decent alerting and so forth.<p>Technically I see this a somewhat easy to manage, legally perhaps its a bit harder to do.<p>Does anyone here have any insights on how such a startup could be created ?
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bowyakka
So it looks like this exists, [https://www.cozy.co/for-
renters/](https://www.cozy.co/for-renters/)

