Hello everyone,

I am a new poster on askmehelpdesk.com and I am in a difficult situation with one of my old roommates. I want to get all of the information out of the way early.

- I live in Boston, MA in a three bedroom apartment.
- Our energy company is NSTAR.
- I live with one roommate who was originally on the lease and one other roommate left a few months ago and now another kid is on our lease.

Anyway the story is, we are now in the stages of paying our old electric bill from when we moved in until a few months ago (about 12 months) when the old roommate left. We were confused about who was paying the bill, the landlord or us (the tenants) and the electric company just contacted us to let us know we needed to pay.

So we all originally co-signed on the lease and now the old roommate is refusing to pay his fair share of the electricity bill because he believes that we didn't do enough to contribute to saving energy and he feels like he is entitled to pay less because "he thinks" he used less energy.

I'm starting to get very frustrated and my question is this.

If he refused to pay his fair share (33%) of the total bill and we end up taking him to small claims court, are we pretty much guaranteed to get the money on the grounds that he was a co-signer and he has the responsibility to pay the bill just like both of us?

Also I want to prepare ahead of time so I was wondering if anyone could help me out with some links to sites with helpful information and maybe the forms I would need to file this suit in small claims court if it comes to it. Your help would be greatly appreciated because I have been trying to work this out for some time and I feel like I'm running around in circles with one short leg. Feel free to e-mail at the address below with any help I would be very grateful.

Thanks again,

Mike
Jamaica Plain, MA

Your lease should mention what is included, if electricity is included then your landlord is responsible for paying it... how do you not know who paid the electric bill for a year?

In any case, any bill that is not part of the rent should be split 3 ways if there are 3 names on the lease, so you'll have no trouble in small claims court. Its impossible to prove who used less electricity.

Well I would say something does not sound right ?

Who paid the bill for 12 months, after a couple you would have had the power turned off for non payment if you owed the utility company.

What exactly does the old lease say, and who were you to pay this bill too and why did they wait 12 months to start collecting from you.

With that said, the court furnishes you the form you fill out, and besides that you take all the evidence you can with you to court, all renters , copy of the electric bills, any agreement you had for payment of the electric, and a copy of the lease. You and the other roommates will testify that everyone was to share part of the electric.

Now this is an issue, if the other person who is not wanting to pay, never agreed to pay utilities,? So you have to prove he knew and would agree to pay his share of the electric

Well basically the story is that we made a mistake when we first read the lease and thought that electricity was included in the cost of the apartment. So the person, who still lives in the apartment was supposed to put it in his name and instead did not.

NSTAR is usually very slow to respond to problems when they find a discrepancy because their workers have had a strike and have been negotiating for more rights saying they are usually over-worked at their job. This is why I think we slipped under the radar and didn't get this figured out until now.

To clarify:
- Electricity was not part of the lease.
- We moved in and didn't pay for electricity for about 12 months. Now that we found out the problem we're paying immediately this week.
- We never wrote up anything in terms of how we would split the bills because we all verbally agreed to split them up evenly. That's what we've done for both heating and cable.

I've been researching some MA state laws and I found this one.
M.G.L. - Chapter 183a, Section 7 (http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/183a-7.htm)

It applies to condominiums but I think it also applies to apartments as well. It basically says no unit owner may exempt himself from paying for common expenses and they will not be entitled to pay an offset or reduced rate.

I think it's fairly open and shut if we take it to small claims court but now I know I can pick up the paperwork there. Anymore help or discussion on this matter is great. Thanks for the help so far I'm starting to feel a little bit better about this.

Mike S.

Since it appears you are going to go to court for reimbursement of the former tenant's electric bill... let's get the terms straight so that you do not confuse the judge. The individual is a "co-tenant" he is NOT a co-signor. If the co-tenant paid for other utilities equal with the other co-tenants, be sure to bring proof of those payments with you to court. The judge will have to decide what months each person is responsible for. Bring a list of accurate dates of occupancy. The judge may decide to follow the lease dates, or he may decide to follow the dates of occupancy by each individual.