I live in a shared house with several other people. One of them (call him Bob) signed the master lease with the owner and his name is on all the utilities. I pay Bob rent and my utilities. I have a written agreement with Bob that says 1) the cost of utilities is evenly divided by the number of people living in the house 2) I can see the utility bill.
In the past I asked Bob to see the utility bill but he never got around to showing it to me. I'm not going to pay anything until I see it. There are several complicating factors:
- against my wishes an extra person has been living here for a few months, and I think it's fair they pay their portion of utilities.
- it was never made clear to me what the period/term of the individual utilities is and I would like to know this for record keeping/budgeting purposes
- Another roommate called Dylan has the responsibility of "finances". Everyone in the house has an instant messaging group we use to communicate, and it was actually Dylan (not Bob the lease holder) who posted the amount needing to be paid, though we would still be paying it to Bob. I feel like Dylan is a busy body and Bob uses him as his muscle man.
- We've had conflicts in the past but now everyone is on good terms and seems happy. When I've made requests like this before they retort "It's a problem if you don't trust someone living here".
How can I politely insist I receive a copy of all the utility bills? I would like to talk to Bob instead of Dylan, what's the best way to keep Dylan out of this? Again, the agreement clearly was I could see the utility bills.