FL Property Manager To Pay $60K In Navy Sailor Eviction Case: U.S. DOJ

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A St. Petersburg property management company will pay $60,000 to resolve allegations that it violated federal protections for servicemembers, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday.

Rental Marketing Solutions, LLC will also pay a $6,000 civil penalty under the settlement, the agency said.

The department said the case involved an active duty Navy sailor who was unlawfully subjected to an eviction judgment after the company filed a false affidavit stating he was not in military service.

The allegations center on the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a federal law that requires a plaintiff to file an affidavit stating whether a defendant is in military service when that defendant does not appear in court. The law is meant to allow a court to appoint an attorney for the servicemember and postpone proceedings if a defense cannot be presented without the servicemember’s presence.

The sailor did not receive those protections because RMS filed a false affidavit, the department said.

The department alleged that RMS named the sailor in an eviction action for a property he had not lived in for several years and obtained an eviction judgment against him in a Florida county court while he was assigned to the USS Nimitz at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington.

The Justice Department said this is the largest amount it has ever obtained for a single servicemember in a case involving the filing of a false military service affidavit.

“Protecting the civil rights of our servicemembers is a top priority for the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Gregory W. Kehoe, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, said. “We will continue to aggressively enforce the SCRA to protect the servicemembers who fight to protect us here at home.”

Assistant attorney general Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the alleged violation had lasting effects on the sailor and his family.

“This SCRA violation had significant consequences, as potential landlords refused to rent to a sailor once they learned of the eviction on his record,” Dhillon said.

A dozen or more landlords refused to rent to the sailor and his wife because the eviction judgment appeared on background reports, according to the department.

For four months, he lived separately from his wife and rotated among temporary accommodations, including sleeping on the berthed Naval ship, which had no heat.

Under the settlement, RMS must also provide 10 years of credit monitoring for the sailor, and maintain SCRA policies and procedures to avoid future violations, the department said.