The District of Columbia military affidavit

How District of Columbia handles it

The District runs one form through every civil default. The instruction sheet explains that the Superior Court created Form CA 114 and amended Civil Rules 55 and 55-II and Landlord and Tenant Rules 11, 14, and 14-I to require it in all Civil Division proceedings where a default has been entered, and that Small Claims Rule 2 pulls in Civil Rules 55 and 55-II so small claims are covered too. It adds a rule people miss: "a separate affidavit must be filed for each defendant named in the complaint and against whom a default has been entered."

The freshness rule is the current enforcement point. The General Order for the Civil Division effective January 1, 2026 states that a Form CA 114 must be filed "regardless of whether the default judgment is to be entered by the clerk or the Court," that caselaw requires the military status investigation to be contemporaneous with the entry of default, and then fixes a number: "the investigation must have been conducted within 30 days prior to the filing of the CA Form 114. If an affidavit contains a search that was carried out more than 30 days from the file date of the affidavit, it will be rejected by the Clerk's Office." A stale DMDC certificate is rejected at the counter, not argued about later.

Section 4 makes you commit to one of four positions. Box A says the defendant is not in any listed branch, has not received notice of induction, and, in an action for possession of real property, the premises are not occupied chiefly for dwelling purposes by the spouse, children, or other dependents of a person in military service. Box A then requires you to check how you know: a DMDC certificate attached, written confirmation from each branch attached, the defendant is not an individual (you name the entity type), you asked the defendant personally on a stated date, you spoke on a stated date with a named person whose reason to know you describe, or another reason you explain in full. The instruction sheet requires those conversations to be "contemporaneous to the entry of the default."

Boxes B, C, and D change the path of the case. Box B is the unable to determine prong and requires you to write out the efforts you made. Box C says the defendant is serving and requires supporting facts. The instruction sheet warns that checking either B or C means "a status hearing will be set by the Clerk's Office for the Court to determine the next course of action." Box D is the waiver route: a copy of a Section 517 waiver, in at least 12 point type, signed by the defendant during or after military service, attached to the form.

Read the form's citations with a translation key. Both the affidavit face and the instruction sheet still run on the pre-2016 codification, citing 50 U.S.C. App. § 501 et seq. and § 521, and the instruction sheet's DMDC link is the retired dmdc.osd.mil/scra/owa/home address rather than the current SCRA site. The attached branch-by-branch mailing list carries per-certificate charges of $5.20 for most services. Those pages have not been refreshed alongside the 2026 General Order, so verify any address or fee with the service before mailing anything.

What trips filers up here

• The 30-day clock runs from your search date to your filing date, not to the judgment date. An affidavit prepared early and filed late gets rejected even though nothing in it is wrong.
• One affidavit per defaulting defendant. A two-tenant eviction needs two Form CA 114s.
• Landlord and Tenant filers have to answer a question the federal statute never asks, about whether a servicemember's spouse, children, or other dependents live in the unit.
• The instruction sheet is much older than the General Order that governs the filing, so its DMDC web address and branch fee list should not be relied on today.

Signing it: declaration, no notary

Section 5 reads that the signer "certif[ies] and declare[s] under penalty of perjury that the information contained above is true." The court's instruction sheet says so directly: "The Form does not need to be notarized since the Act states that the affidavit requirement may be satisfied by a statement, declaration, verification, or certificate in writing, subscribed and certified, or declared to be true under penalty of perjury."

No notary is needed. The signature block is an unsworn declaration under penalty of perjury, which is what 50 U.S.C. § 3931(b)(4) expressly allows. Signing it knowing the military statement is false is still a federal crime, and a state perjury exposure on top.

Getting the military-status answer right

The affidavit is only as good as the search behind it. The Defense Manpower Data Center runs the free lookup that courts and creditors rely on, and since 2026 it requires a free account even for a single record. Our guide to the DMDC SCRA website covers the search itself, what a "no information found" result does and does not prove, and the batch route for high-volume filers. The federal rules behind this form, including what happens when you genuinely cannot determine status, sit on the hub page.

If one was filed against you

A false affidavit is not a technicality. In May 2026 the Justice Department settled with a Florida property manager that swore a Navy sailor was not on active duty, took a default eviction judgment, and left him with an eviction on his record that a dozen landlords then refused to rent around: $60,000 to one servicemember plus a civil penalty . If a default judgment was entered against you while you were serving, it can be reopened; the default-judgment shield walks the deadlines.