My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Wisconsin.
I've been living in a full 4-bedroom unit in the lower level of a house since September 2015(about 8 months). The electric and internet bills are in my name. Each roommate has their own lease with the landlord, so we are not tied together on that. We have a verbal agreement to pay equal parts of the electric and internet bills.
Roommates 1 and 2, whom I've never had an issue about payment with, always pay me on or before the day that I set as the deadline. They pay by check, so I have proof of payment for them.
Roommate 3 always pays cash. This bothered me at first, but he made it pretty clear he wasn't going to bother getting checks from his bank, so I went with it. Unfortunately, after the second month, this third roommate started paying me late. Normally it is only a couple of days, a week maximum. At the week-late mark, I send roommate 3 a message that I'm going to change the WiFi password until he pays me. This got him to pay pretty quickly the first two times.
This time, though, I changed the WiFi password after a week of no payment, and two weeks later he still hasn't paid me. I sent him a message asking when he was going to pay me. No response. Tried again. No response. Finally, after asking him if I needed to get serious about it, he says he'll pay it. Supposedly he's paying me tomorrow. He went on some rant about my girlfriend's car taking up space in our (limited) off street parking are so he keeps getting parking tickets. My girlfriend doesn't have a car. I identified each of the cars that were parked back there(that I saw), and they all belong to people that live in our house. That was today.
My question is: What can I do to get him to pay if he doesn't pay tomorrow? Is small-claims court an option? The bill for last month was $26.43 per person which includes Electric and Internet. I changed the password on the internet so I figure I can't charge him for the time that he didn't have access to it. If I only charge him for electric he'll owe only $15.88.
Another question: Since the end of the lease is on May 22nd, that means I'll be getting an electric bill for May after everyone is moved out. Roommate 2 has already agreed to pay me an approximation of her share of the final electric bill in advance. I plan on asking Roommate 1 to do it as well. I'm afraid that roommate 3 is going to try and worm his way out of it. Can I sue on the basis that I have zero trust in roommate 3's intent to pay? He has been constantly late on his payments and all but flat-out refused to pay for this last month.
EDIT: I should clarify: I was told by roommate 2 that roommate 3 said he was going to move out of the state after this lease is up. That's going to make it really difficult to contact him and get him to pay. That's why I'm wondering if I can sue for the future payment.
Thank you for reading all of this!
I've been living in a full 4-bedroom unit in the lower level of a house since September 2015(about 8 months). The electric and internet bills are in my name. Each roommate has their own lease with the landlord, so we are not tied together on that. We have a verbal agreement to pay equal parts of the electric and internet bills.
Roommates 1 and 2, whom I've never had an issue about payment with, always pay me on or before the day that I set as the deadline. They pay by check, so I have proof of payment for them.
Roommate 3 always pays cash. This bothered me at first, but he made it pretty clear he wasn't going to bother getting checks from his bank, so I went with it. Unfortunately, after the second month, this third roommate started paying me late. Normally it is only a couple of days, a week maximum. At the week-late mark, I send roommate 3 a message that I'm going to change the WiFi password until he pays me. This got him to pay pretty quickly the first two times.
This time, though, I changed the WiFi password after a week of no payment, and two weeks later he still hasn't paid me. I sent him a message asking when he was going to pay me. No response. Tried again. No response. Finally, after asking him if I needed to get serious about it, he says he'll pay it. Supposedly he's paying me tomorrow. He went on some rant about my girlfriend's car taking up space in our (limited) off street parking are so he keeps getting parking tickets. My girlfriend doesn't have a car. I identified each of the cars that were parked back there(that I saw), and they all belong to people that live in our house. That was today.
My question is: What can I do to get him to pay if he doesn't pay tomorrow? Is small-claims court an option? The bill for last month was $26.43 per person which includes Electric and Internet. I changed the password on the internet so I figure I can't charge him for the time that he didn't have access to it. If I only charge him for electric he'll owe only $15.88.
Another question: Since the end of the lease is on May 22nd, that means I'll be getting an electric bill for May after everyone is moved out. Roommate 2 has already agreed to pay me an approximation of her share of the final electric bill in advance. I plan on asking Roommate 1 to do it as well. I'm afraid that roommate 3 is going to try and worm his way out of it. Can I sue on the basis that I have zero trust in roommate 3's intent to pay? He has been constantly late on his payments and all but flat-out refused to pay for this last month.
EDIT: I should clarify: I was told by roommate 2 that roommate 3 said he was going to move out of the state after this lease is up. That's going to make it really difficult to contact him and get him to pay. That's why I'm wondering if I can sue for the future payment.
Thank you for reading all of this!
Rent and Utilities: How to Deal with Roommate (Potentially) Not Paying Utilities
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