About

Why I built this.

I'm Santiago. I came to Cork as an international student and went through the search everybody here goes through: dozens of messages, almost no replies, and no way to show a landlord that I was someone worth replying to.

So I started asking. Around 180 students, and a community that is now over 600 people. Three things came up again and again, and they are the reason this product looks the way it does.

The silence. Between 6% and 20% of enquiries get an answer. If you have no local history, you are the first person to get skipped.

Nobody to vouch for you. Whoever arrives in a new country starts from zero at every move, because their history doesn't travel with them. The people who find flats fastest are the ones with a network, and a network is exactly what a newcomer doesn't have.

The deposit. Ireland has no deposit protection scheme, deposit retention is 19% of RTB disputes, and almost nobody has evidence of what the flat looked like on day one.

The hardest question I got in all those interviews was from someone who asked me: who verifies the verifier? I didn't have a good answer then. The answer now is that we don't claim to be the authority — we tell you exactly what was checked for each fact, and we publish the checks. If a landlord never confirms anything, your record still works, it just says so.

This version is free, all of it, and there is nothing to upgrade to. I'm trying to find out whether a portable rental history actually opens doors. If you build one and it does, or it doesn't, please tell me — there is a feedback button on every screen and it reaches me directly.

Santiago · Cork

TrustColive is an independent student project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by University College Cork.