If my roommates use more utilities than me, am I legally allowed to pay less?

Question

I live with three roommates. My roommates use much more electricity than I do and are constantly wasting energy, which means our utility bill is high. The bill is in the name of one of my roommates, and the rest of us pay her back each month. If i paid her less to reflect the energy that she uses and I don’t, would I be legally protected, or am I liable for that money? Our lease doesn’t say anything about how we should split utilities and we didn’t sign any sort of contract with each other.

Edit: Thanks for the responses! We live in Austin, Texas. I have looked over the lease, and all that it says is that the person who has the bill in their name is responsible for paying the utilities. I never committed to splitting the utilities exactly four ways either verbally or in writing. I know that it seems petty not to want to pay the extra for the utilities i’m not using, but they have acted very entitled to my paying for their energy usage and the roommate who has the bill in their name has been rude and unfriendly to me the entire time I have lived here. I don’t plan to stop paying her back at all, but I don’t feel like giving her money for her wasted energy that I wouldn’t be paying if she used the AC at a reasonable level. Not to mention the fact that I am always freezing cold in the apartment, so not only am I paying more for something I’m not using, I’m paying for something I actively don’t want. Thanks again!

Answer 1

If you promised to split the bill equally, that is a contract even if there was not paperwork or signature. The utility company will only come after the person on the contract with them, then that person can go after others who are not paying the agreed-to amount. Maybe there was no agreement at all and the person on the bill just hoped that you would split the costs.

It does also depend on what the lease for the unit says about utilities, for example "tenants shall be responsible for paying the utilities". You are one of the tenants, and with that working, you have a responsibility to pay. The courts could decide whether the bill should be split evenly, or according to individual use, and you would then have to establish that the other person uses substantially more electricity.

Answer 2

From a legal standpoint, roommates co-signing a lease are normally jointly liable.
Joint liability means every one of the tenants is responsible for the entire bill. If there is just one primary tenant named on the lease, then that tenant alone is responsible for the entire bill.

How you split the bill is a matter of further agreements between the four of you. It's something a court would expect roommates to work out between themselves, and solve their disputes similarly. In some jurisdictions, a documented good-faith attempt to resolve the matter via negotiation, mediation or arbitration is mandatory. In others it's just expected before filing a lawsuit, but it strengthens the position.

For practical purposes, even if your time is worth less than the difference in bills, the court's isn't. De minimis non curat lex - "the law is not concerned with small things". It's for matters that significantly impact lives or businesses, and can't be reasonably resolved in other ways.

How a group of patrons should split their bill is a textbook example of what courts usually deem below their stature. That's not because the bill is small - you could rack up $5,000 in a restaurant, but the same court will readily provide a hearing for a $50 fine.

The reason is, if a few people voluntarily decide to dine out, it carries expected consequences, such as the need to pay the bill. A reasonable person should either agree on the split in advance, or accept the risk of any split, up to being stuck with the whole thing. These are agreements people close enough to share such expenses are expected to resolve on their own. There's no public interest being served by the court interfering in these agreements.

There are exceptions. If one of you was secretly running a bitcoin farm in the house (which basically converts energy into money), it won't matter what your agreement was or if you had separate meters. This is a commercial operation, an egregious and unexpected abuse of a household lease, for which and the landlord and the leaseholder both have grounds to evict and sue for the costs.

Taking longer showers or using more power for cooking, TV, or even heating and AC is something you can reasonably expect of a roommate, but using that power commercially isn't.

Answer 3

am I legally allowed to pay less?

Sure, why not?

Did your contract with the roommates explicitly state "XYZ% from each tenant." If it did state this then you must pay XYZ%.

The only thing stopping you from paying less is a stern defense. Apparently, you're not able to stand up for yourself and a lawyer isn't gonna do it for free so to keep peace you are paying more than your "fair share" which everyone else has no issue with.

Overall, your post seems better suited for https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/