My landlord was stealing utilities from me for over 3 years. I did not pay rent for the last two months because they refused to compensate me. The electric company came in and determined they were indeed using our utilities. I moved out after 2 months. I am suing them for the utilities. Can I sue them for the time, expenses and emotional stress as well?

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Originally Posted by thicks86

My landlord was stealing utilities from me for over 3 years. I did not pay rent for the last two months because they refused to compensate me. The electric company came in and determined they were indeed using our utilities. I moved out after 2 months. I am suing them for the utilities. Can I sue them for the time, expenses and emotional stress as well?

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I assume they were criminally charged?

No, you can't sue for emotional stress. You can sue them for some necessary expenses. What were your expenses? And, of course, Court costs.

Did you leave owing rent?

No they were not criminally charged. They were forced to put in another meter for their tenants. I left owing two months rent. I am suing them for a percentage of all utility bills, half of my security deposit (which they never returned), time and expenses. Is my time considered an expense. I spent a ton of time having to get the electric company to come out, phone calls, and now court.

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Originally Posted by thicks86

No they were not criminally charged. They were forced to put in another meter for their tenants. I left owing two months rent. I am suing them for a percentage of all utility bills, half of my security deposit (which they never returned), time and expenses. Is my time considered an expense. I spent a ton of time having to get the electric company to come out, phone calls, and now court.

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You can sue for just about anything but I don't see that you will collect.

If there was only one meter, I don't know that they were "stealing" utilities. Technically the bill should have been subdivided between the people using the utilities, but I can see that that would be tricky. Do you do it evenly, per number of bedrooms, per number of people in the apartment, or take into consideration the number of electronic gadgets the tenants have?

I agree with Froggy, if there was only One metter on a multi-family building, then the utilitiy bill should havve been handled in one of two ways. Either it would be split among the units or the landlord pays and charges each unit a fixed amount.

A split of the bill could be done in a variety of ways. According to the size of each unit, the number of occupants or just evenly.

So I'm wondering how the electric company determined they were using your electricity?

Also, if they didn't return your deposit how did you go about determining that you're asking for half of it back?

I agree with Judy. You can go after whatever you want, but you'll have to have proof, evidence, etc. Also, in my experience, the Small Claims Judges usually don't have a lot of time and patience for stuff like "emotional distress", or your story accompanying the emotional stress. Just itemize out the tangible charges, focus on the facts, and be as professional and non-whiney as possible. I don't mean that offensively - you have a right to be hacked off... I just don't think that will get you as far with a judge as being very professional and matter-of-fact. Does that make sense?

And one issue that may need to look into , is this even a legal rental, if it was part of their home ( they were using electric)
I guess was not the bill twice what you normally paid before?
Where they running the entire other home on your meter. Also whose name was the meter in, yours or thiers,