The New Jersey military affidavit

How New Jersey handles it

The family form is written for spouses, not for creditors. CN 11191, Certification of Non-Military Service (revised 01/2017), asks the signer to state that they are personally acquainted with the other party, to give that party’s residence address and email, and to certify that the other party is not in the military service of the United States. It is captioned for the Chancery Division, Family Part, and carries a Case ID field alongside the docket number.

What makes it distinctive is item 4, a list of ways to prove the negative, each of which has to be explained rather than merely checked. The options are having recently seen the other party, with when, where, and circumstances, the date and place your children last had parenting time with them, recent telephone contact, knowledge of the employer with name and address, an age that exceeds military requirements, a disability with its nature stated, incarceration with the location, or any other reason. Below those sit two attachment options: the printout from the Department of Defense website at scra.dmdc.osd.mil, or statements from the five armed forces that the party is not in the military service.

For a money judgment the statement moves into the Special Civil Part default kit, CN 10914, How to Request a Default Judgment (revised 02/2026). Step 1 of the kit tells you to determine whether the debtor is on active duty before anything else, and says the step can be skipped only when the judgment is against a business. Form A of the kit, the Certification of Proof, carries the military statement at item 5: the filer certifies that the defendant "is / is not on active duty in the military service of the United States at the present time because:" and then states why and provides the source of that knowledge.

The kit is explicit about the one thing that disqualifies you from the clerk-entered route. Its instructions list situations where the form cannot be used, and one of them is "You are unable to prove that the defendant is not on active duty in the military." In that case New Jersey sends you to a motion decided by a judge. The kit also insists on personal knowledge: if you do not have it about the defendant’s status, you cannot use the form, and your alternative is a DMDC search using the defendant’s Social Security number or date of birth.

Two timing rules attach to the paperwork rather than to the search. A request for default judgment must reach the court within six months of the date default was entered, and the Certification of Proof itself must be received by the court within 30 days of the date the person seeking judgment signed it. Filing is through JEDS, by mail, or in person at the Special Civil Part office in the county of filing.

What trips filers up here

• New Jersey redacts the answer. The public notice at the top of the Certification of Proof lists military status alongside Social Security and account numbers as a personal identifier that must not be entered on the form, even though item 5 of the same form asks about active duty status.
• The certification asks for parenting time, disability, and incarceration as proof of non-service. These are family-court facts, and they show that CN 11191 was drafted for divorce and custody defaults rather than for debt collection.
• The alternative to a DMDC printout is spelled out as statements from all five armed forces, a route that predates the single-search website and is still printed on the 2017 form.
• A business defendant needs nothing. Both the family certification and the Special Civil Part kit apply only to individuals, and the kit tells filers to skip item 5 entirely when the judgment debtor is a business.

Signing it: declaration, no notary

New Jersey uses certifications rather than sworn affidavits, so no notary is involved. CN 11191 closes with "I certify that the foregoing statements made by me are true. I am aware that if any of the foregoing statements made by me are willfully false, I am subject to punishment," above a date and a Plaintiff / Defendant signature line.

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.

Serving in New Jersey and looking for what the state adds to your own protections rather than court procedure? That is a different page: New Jersey SCRA benefits.