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!