Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Connecticut

Re: Other tenants are using my utilities

Good question. The answer depends on which of the other parties you are talking about.

1. With regard to the other tenants, whose bill you paid, probably not. If you accidentally pay for someone else's services, it would be hard to get that money back from them. Unless, of course, the tenants had deliberately plugged into your meter without your permission and were knowingly stealing the utility services from you.

2. With regard to the landlord, it will depend on whose error the meter problem was. The contents of your lease will impact the contractual relationship you have with your landlord, but it sounds like you had an understanding with your landlord that you were only to be paying for your utilities. Did the landlord know that all the utilities were running to your meter? Did the landlord cause the meter problem, or was it caused by the electric company?

You have a possible cause of action against the landlord, but there are some issues that you will want to talk to an attorney about. Alternatively, you might have a cause of action against the utility company, if you can show that they had a duty to make sure the meter was right and breached that duty. Your attorney should look over your lease and talk to you about the sequence of events (e.g., when you moved into the building, when you discovered the problem, how the discovery came about, etc.) to determine if you have a case. One of the hard parts will be in determining whether the landlord had a responsibility to make sure the meter was accurate. You will also want to look at your lease to see if it says anything about your responsibilities as a tenant or representations by the landlord.

You will want to talk to your attorney right away, because you can always run into statute of limitations issues, barring you from bringing the claim if you wait too long to talk to file the case in court.

Hope that helps!

Diana