District Court finds defendant ‘not guilty’ in dispute over final shared rent payment

The District Court found Evan Bellamy “not guilty” in a dispute over Nora Bellamy’s request for reimbursement of $700 in final rent. Presiding judge Paul signed the one-sentence judgment on October 23, 2026. It contains no express order requiring payment or setting Evan’s share at the $300 he requested.

The dispute centred on whether Nora had agreed to reduce Evan’s contribution or merely given him more time. Both acknowledged an initial agreement to split the $1,400 rent equally; they disagreed about what their later messages changed.

The formal judgment supplies no reasons beyond stating that the parties had been heard. Its use of “not guilty” does not explain how the court resolved the reimbursement claim or assessed the competing accounts of the messages.

During the hearing, Paul repeatedly questioned the absence of a separately signed contract and expressed the view that phone messages did not create a binding obligation. Nora objected to that categorical legal conclusion; the judge overruled her objection. Those exchanges show the issues raised at the hearing, but the signed judgment does not adopt or explain a legal test.

Paul also raised the possibility that messages could be altered. Evan objected that this was speculative, and that objection was overruled. The formal decision makes no finding that either party altered messages, nor does it resolve the difference between Evan’s screenshot and the longer thread Nora described.

Nora said she paid the landlord the full rent to avoid a late payment. She described a saved thread recording Evan’s agreement to pay half, his thanks for her covering the rent temporarily, and her later request that he send $300 and arrange payment of the remaining $400. She maintained that she had offered time, not forgiveness.

Evan admitted initially agreeing to pay $700 but said moving expenses left him unable to afford it. He understood Nora’s response to his $300 proposal as acceptance of a reduced contribution. He acknowledged that she had not expressly forgiven the other $400 and that he had not yet paid even the $300.

Evan said his screenshot stopped at Nora’s response to his proposal. He could not say whether later messages sought the balance, and he declined to accuse Nora of lying about them. Both parties resisted treating the messages as having no significance merely because they had signed no separate contract.

The parties were unmarried and had moved apart by the time they discussed the final rent. Neither still occupied the apartment. Nora said she did not know whether the rental contract had been formally cancelled and had no separate cancellation document.

The record therefore leaves a narrow but important uncertainty: the court announced an outcome without explaining whether it rested on the original agreement, the later exchange or another ground. It establishes neither a reasoned rule about text-message agreements nor an express payment arrangement between the parties.