Always Get Proof That Your Roommates Paid the Shared Bills
I’ve had my share of roommates, including more than once in one of those group homes where it seems like a new roommate appears every other month, and I’ve experienced just about anything that can go wrong financially.
Roommates who don’t pay their share of the rent.
Roommates who don’t pay their share of the utilities.
Roommates who move out without any notice before paying the rent they owe you (because you are the “main roommate” in a four-person house and your job is to send one check to the landlord and you can either pay rent in full or endanger everyone’s housing situation, so you agree to cover that roommate only once ).
However, I did not come across the situation described by Bree Rodi-Manta in The Financial Diet :
We paid for hydropower (electricity), but not for water or gas. However, our heat was electrical and therefore reflected on our hydropower bill. The account was already in her name and she had automatic withdrawals set up. When she emailed me after my first month and the bill was $ 50 and change, it seemed quite normal to me. What didn’t seem normal was that instead of sending me a copy of the invoice, she sent me a screenshot of withdrawing funds from her online banking. I asked her why she couldn’t just send me a PDF of the invoice. She told me that she hadn’t received the emails – maybe they ended up in her spam filter. It was clear that I would not receive this invoice and I could not force it.
It turned out that this roommate couldn’t send PDFs of paid bills because she wasn’t paying the bills. She puts the money in her pocket, and when Rodi Manta tried to contact the electric company to transfer bills to her name, they refused to talk to her because her identity was not on the account.
If you’re in a roommate situation where you pay rent or utility bills to your roommate and not the homeowner or utility company, always get proof that your money went where it was supposed to go. If your roommate does not provide such proof, tell him that you are not going to make the next payment until you receive it.
You may want to ask to become an authorized user of utility accounts, which will give you the ability to both make and view payments. You can also use apps like Splitwise to keep track of what bills need to be paid and how much each roommate owes – and of course there’s always Venmo .
If you’ve also had your share of the roommates and group living experiences, how did you ensure that the bills were paid on time and that everyone contributed what they had to? Do you have any horror stories, tips, or financial lessons from your roommates?