Rent-to-own car rental: installments without a bank, counted by the day
The driver buys the car out through rental payments — no bank takes part in the deal. Such a relationship lasts for months and breaks down not over bad intent but over the count: how much has been paid, for which rental days, which payments were rent and which were a traffic fine. fleeTau keeps this count day by day; a dedicated rent-to-own type is on the roadmap, and below we say directly what is ready now and what is ahead.
The longest deal a fleet makes — and record-keeping decides everything
A rent-to-own deal outlasts any rental: payments run for months, the car changes condition, overdue days, traffic fines and pauses happen. The dispute at the end is almost always the same — "how much has been paid and for what". A notebook and a messenger thread are no evidence over that distance.
In fleeTau every payment is recorded by a cashier with the date, legal entity and channel, every rental day is a separate charge, and a correction is a separate reversal operation, not a backdated edit. The history of the deal can be reconstructed day by day for any month.
What already works for the rent-to-own scheme
In other words, a rent-to-own scheme can already be run as a long-term rental with a full history — that is how the two live types, long-term and weekly, work today.
- Agreement and terms
- a snapshot of the rate and deposit, confirmed by the driver with a trail: time, network address, device
- Charges
- every 24 hours from the moment of handover, paid in arrears
- Payments
- recorded by the cashier with the legal entity and channel; settled oldest first
- Traffic fines
- entered by citation number; the rental log determines who was driving
- Inspections
- handover and return with photos; stored for at least 24 months
- Deposit
- tracked separately; refund, withholding with a stated reason, or offset — a human decision
What is not there yet: a buyout schedule
The rent-to-own type is on the roadmap. Its point is not a separate system but an agreement setting: a part of every payment counts toward the buyout principal, the accumulated share is visible to the driver in the workspace, and pricing can be set per week or per month. Until this setting exists, the buyout share is calculated outside the system — but from the payment history the system keeps.
We name no dates: a plan is published when it becomes a product. If rent-to-own is your main scenario, write to hello@fleetau.com — the founder replies.
Being overdue does not burn what has been paid
The system never zeroes anything out on its own. Overdue rental days are flagged and collected on the "Balances due" screen, the driver gets a reminder — and that is all: no late fee, no automatic termination, repossessing the car is a human decision. What has been paid stays paid, and both sides can see it.
What happens to the car and the accumulated share if the deal falls through is a matter of the agreement between the fleet and the driver. The system’s role is to make sure both sides come to that conversation with the same numbers.
What the driver who is buying out sees
Their balance due by rental day, their terms, their traffic fines with citation numbers — and the "cash handed over" claim that protects against a false overdue mark until the cashier confirms the payment. The workspace opens via the fleet’s link, no app to install.
The driver does not see the car’s owner or the fleet’s economics: the fleet runs the deal with them, and the buyout terms are a matter of their agreement, not of direct negotiations with the owner.
Money goes straight to the fleet, the count lives in the system
Payments go to the fleet in cash or by transfer; the cashier records them with the legal entity and channel. Card data never passes through fleeTau services, and we hold no one else’s money.
The fleet’s subscription is billed by active cars: a car being bought out that is on the road is active, like any other. The first three cars are free.
What people usually ask
Can we run rent-to-own now, before the dedicated type ships?
Yes — as a long-term rental: an agreement with a snapshot of the terms, daily charges, payments with a full history, traffic fines and inspections. The buyout share will have to be calculated alongside, but from the system’s data, not from a notebook. When the type ships, the payment history will already be in the system.
Why does this work without a bank?
The car stays with the fleet until the accounts are settled, and the fleet keeps the records. The risk is covered not by scoring but by control over the subject of the deal: the rental log knows exactly who has the car on any given day, and the balance due is visible within 24 hours, not at the end of the month.
The driver falls overdue — do they lose what they have accumulated?
Not by the system’s hand: it zeroes nothing out and charges no late fees. Overdue days are flagged, repossession is a human decision, and the fate of the accumulated share is a term of your agreement with the driver. The payment history is kept in full and visible to both sides.
How do traffic fines coexist with buyout payments?
One order — oldest first: a road police fine passed on to the driver stands in the same settlement queue as rental days. Where every payment went is visible line by line — to the driver and to the fleet.
Start with records that will outlive the deal
See the demo fleet at demo.fleetau.pro — it is created right in the browser. Sign up at app.fleetau.pro/signup: free for up to three cars, no bank card required.