What To Do If Your Roommate Stops Paying Their Rent

By Garth Brunner

Unfortunately, your roommate has stopped paying their portion of the rent. This is a very stressful situation for all parties involved, but there are certain things you should do in these cases. Whether your roommate is a long-time friend or simply someone you share space with, you need to go about this logically. Follow these actions, in no particular order, to try and get this resolved as quickly as possible.

Communicate Expectations With Your Roommate
You should speak openly with your roommate to understand why they have not been paying rent. It could be something as simple as they happened to forget, or it could be that they haven’t been making enough money. While you can sympathize with them over a bad situation, this is causing you a lot of stress while putting the full burden of the rent on your shoulders.

By having an open and honest conversation with your roommate, you may be able to resolve things quickly or come up with some other kind of compromise or plan that works best for both of you going forward, such as negotiating a different type of rent based on room size..

You may consider having this conversation with a neutral third party present to help keep things civil. This should not be a friend of either of you, but someone who is completely unaffected by the situation, such as a professional mediator.

If this conversation does not end on a positive note, it may be time for more drastic measures such as legal action.

Talk to Your Landlord
Talking to your landlord about the situation is always a good idea, seeing as they are in charge of the property. While not all landlords are willing to help as they might not care who exactly pays the full price of the rent, they may be able to start the eviction process better than you can on your own and redraft a lease naming you the sole person responsible for rent. They can help you change the locks while your roommate is out for a bit and help provide any further documentation that we’ll talk about later.

Talk to Your Roommate’s Parents
It may sound silly, but if you are able to speak with your roommate’s parents, do it! While it can be a mistake sometimes, if your roommate learned this poor behavior from them, it is possible that it works in your favor.

There are many people in your situation who reach out to the parents, who end up being appalled by their child’s behavior and make them pay you everything you owe or pay on their child’s behalf. It’s possible they’re paying the rent to your roommate, who then uses it for other funds. You have nothing to lose, you may as well swing for it and hope for the best!

Document Everything
If this situation continues to escalate, you may want to try to evict your roommate or take them to civil court to pay you the rent they owe. If this is the case, you need to keep copies and document absolutely everything. This goes from major documents such as the lease and a roommate agreement, proof of your rental payments and extra payments to cover their half, to smaller but still important things such as screenshots of texts, emails, any receipts, and notes or recordings of any phone calls you two share. Even if you end up not needing it, having it in your back pocket to help and prove your case is worth it.

Be Petty
At this point, if your roommate isn’t paying or helping, you want them to move out. This is your time to be as petty as possible to make living there rent-free difficult for them. Do you pay for the internet while they use it? Change the password so they can’t use it anymore. Hide or lock up any groceries you purchased on your own so they can’t mooch off of those either.

While this may sound childish, you are entitled to keep all of what is yours if they’re not contributing an equal share to your apartment. They have already made living difficult for you, it is about time you return the favor. However, be careful that you don’t break any laws, such as vandalism, as in destroying their property or threatening bodily harm. Keep everything to a minor or major inconvenience that will make your roommate want to move out.

This is a stressful situation that no one wants to be in, so hopefully this guide can help you get everything sorted out and under control so this burden no longer grows on you. Don’t be afraid to take necessary action so that you can revert back to living in peace.