If your roommates are not named on the account and the account is in your name, and there is no co-signer, the debt is yours and yours alone. You have no grounds to sue anybody in small claims court unless you have a contract entered into with the roommates as signatories and it was duly signed, notarized, and witnessed. Not likely. Otherwise you would have breach of contract and a lawyer, instead of having your thumb in your mouth, asking strangers dumb questions. If I were you, I’d try to find Jack Reacher or a reasonable facsimile thereof, to go have a “talk” with your “roommates”. Of course, then you’d have to pay him a fee, unless he felt sorry for you.
” You have no grounds to sue anybody in small claims court unless you have a contract entered into with the roommates as signatories and it was duly signed, notarized, and witnessed. “
Oral agreements can be enforced and have been the bases for wins in court.
The debt is his alone to the electric company, but he will have a contract claim against his roommates for their portion if they don’t pay. A contract doesn’t need to be in writing.
It may or may not be covered by the statute of frauds in his state (it is not a contract for sale of real property, for the sale of goods worth more than $500, or that cannot be performed in less than one year), but oral agreements are usually sufficient in small claims court. If he wins in small claims court he will get a judgment that he can frame and put on his wall (but probably never collect).