Do I Have To Pay Utilities In A House I Lived In If My Name Was Not On The Bills?
here is the deal, I lived in a house with 3 other girls for a year, I signed the lease and paid every months rent without being late. I moved out on Feb 28. The lease ended March 1st. None of the utilities were in my name. My roommates put me through hell for the year that I lived there and was basically banned to my room for the last 6 months of the lease. I never really left my room other then to get something from the kitchen or go to the bathroom. When I left the house the utilities for February were still do. I opted not to pay them because of everything they had done to me in the year I lived there. Again, my name was not on any of the utilities. Also, one of my roommates only lived there on the weekends because she has an apartment/job in another city that she lived in 4-5 days a week, but she signed the lease. My roommates mom was our landlord. My roommate told our sometimes there roommate that she only had to pay rent and not utilities since she wasn’t there all the time, but I never agreed to it. Also, a verbal agreement when we moved into the house was that the rent we were paying every month was going to buy us new appliances for the house because all the appliances were ancient. There also wasn’t a refrigerator in the house and my parents had an extra one at the time we moved in that they lent us for what was only supposed to be a short time. We were supposed to get a new refrigerator shortly after we moved in, but 9 months later when my parents moved out of there house my roommate bought there old fridge from them and the temporary fridge went back to my parents house that they were renting. The only “new” appliance we saw was a used stove we got 3 months after we moved in when our oven part of the stove hadn’t worked since the day we moved in. Our dishwasher was also sort of decoration as it also hadn’t worked since the day we moved in. Other then that we didn’t see anything new. We also bought paint using our own money to paint the smoke stained walls when we moved in. We had leaking faucets in our kitchen and bathroom that never got professionally fixed and caused our water bill to sky rocket. The dryer never dried and the water hardly ever drained from the washer. Basically, what I am trying to ask is am I LEGALLY responsible for the utilities since they were not in my name.
I also got harassing phone calls from my old roommates that I decided to block there numbers from contacting my phone. Now, my landlord is calling and faxing my DAD at WORK and harassing him about this.
What are my legal responsibilities??
LEGALLY—-probably not. But morally, definately yes. Your roommates trusted you and you betrayed them. What comes around, goes around.
If the lease you signed says you would pay a portion of the utilites then yes you owe, it not then you don’t. It doesn’t matter who’s name they were in
You used the utilities you pay your share. It is simple really. You cannot simply decide that you dont want to because of other issues.
Did the Rent include the utilities, generally it does when you only rent a room. Is this written in a contract somewhere?
Sounds like you now understand why you don’t have roommates. It always turns into a fiasco and you can end up hating your best friend. I’m a really nice person but when someone does a job on me, they get what they deserve if the opportunity presents itself and people that are like your roommate always leave themselves open. You are not legally obligated to pay the utilities as long as your name is not on the utilities and your landlord has nothing to do with an agreement with the utility companies and that is in the lease so that you are aware that the tenants pay for those utilities and, as long as you didn’t sign some type of agreement with the other tenants. Morally is a decision that you will have to live with. Because the one tenant told another that they didn’t have to pay utilities or their share without your permission would make that person liable for the other person’s share. On that basis it wouldn’t bother me to tell the one that made the offer that she is responsible for the extra money you were forced to pay all year and the remaining bill is therefore hers to pay. And on the other hand for the way you were treated in your own home, I would tell them to kiss my @ss. They could try to take you to small claims court but the agreement made without your consent pretty much will do their claim in.
And it is illegal to harrass someone at work and since your father has nothing to do with your agreements, what she is doing is wrong. He should tell her just that and if she continues to bother him at work, he will file charges against her. If she continues, he should. Doesn’t he have his calls screened at work. Tell them to tell her he is out and will return her call. She’ll get the message.
From what you said you have not signed any sort of written agreement with your roommates or otherwise saying that the bills would be split (are you sure it wasn’t on the lease? Do you have a copy?).The only really bad thing i could see coming of it is if they chose to take th time and money to try (repeat, TRY) and sue you. in which case they would have to prove why you owe them and you prove why you don’t. If there were only verbal agreements then it’ll pretty much come down to who story is more believable and if ethically you should have been compensating them. More then likely you’ll just lose some old friends and they’ll take the loss. All i can really say is that if you don’t pay it won’t go on your credit because the bill isn’t in your name. Don’t know the situation exactly but if you’re just living in someones house and paying rent (in other words not a complex owned by your friends parents) then i don’t think your next choice of residence will be able to find any sort of bad record either. I’m not an expert. Maybe in the end it’d be better just to pay to get them out of your hair.