Absolutely, small claims is in your future. Without a contract the renter is a tenant at will and treated the same as a month to month renter. Therefore, he owes you not only for the rent stemming from his bounced check, but an additional rent too because a month to month renter is required to give the landlord a months written notice before they cab vacate.

Your bank records of receiving rent payments will be enough to prove he was your renter. You have a strong case.

You don't even need to make this about him being a tenant. He owed you money. A check is an I.O.U. It bounced. He still owes. The end.

If I were you I would wait until his next payday and then redeposit the check before filing suit. You might very well get lucky. This would not apply if the check was written on a closed account or he stopped payment. If it was simply insufficient funds I'd go for it.

You can sue him, yes. He owes you for last month and for June since he didn't give notice.

not much.

OK, so here's my situation (New Jersey resident):

I've been renting out a room to someone for a little over a year now. He was not on the lease, and we have no written sub-tenant agreement; just a verbal one stating that he would pay rent on the 1st of every month. Everything went well until the last month, when his last check bounced. He promised to pay me back a week after it happened, but then he moved out and changed his number. Can I take him to small claims court? Even though we had no written agreement, I have bank records of his rent payments (via check) and cell phone records. Are these enough for me to win in court?