If you need to collect past due rent, there are a number of potential avenues to pursue which depend on the circumstances involved and how much the past due rent is at issue. You can likely try to pursue the amount via smalls claim court, or you can hire an attorney to pursue the deficiency, or a collection agency or the like. There are pros and cons to each method, of course, so you'll have to make some decisions as to what is most important. That said, your ability to collect on the bill payments due is somewhat nuanced, as the bills are likely in your client's name as opposed to yours. Thus, the utility company is likely to pursue whoever is named on their account for the deficiency, typically through their in-house collections department and then through a collections agency. If the rental agreement clearly indicates that the tenant is responsible for the utility bill at issue, or all utility bills, as it were, you can likely pay the bill off yourself (to ensure that you're providing utility service for any new tenants) and then seek reimbursement of the costs along with the late rent. Unfortunately, however, there's no way to require payment of back due rent during the eviction court proceeding itself and thus you're going to have to go through another process to collect.
Answered on Jan 20th, 2012 at 6:27 PM