Rental Marketing Solutions: $60,000 for One False Military Affidavit

What happened

On May 13, 2026 the Justice Department announced that Rental Marketing Solutions, LLC (RMS), a property management company based in St. Petersburg, Florida, would pay $60,000 to resolve allegations that it violated the SCRA by obtaining an unlawful eviction judgment against an active duty Navy sailor. DOJ described it as the largest amount the Department has ever obtained for a single servicemember in a case involving the filing of a false military service affidavit.

According to the release, RMS named the sailor as a defendant in an eviction action for a property he had not lived in for several years, filed an affidavit stating he was not on active duty, 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 consequences ran well past the courtroom. Because the eviction judgment appeared on his background reports, DOJ says a dozen or more landlords refused to rent to him and his wife. For four months he lived apart from her and rotated among temporary accommodations, including sleeping aboard the berthed ship, which had no heat; his wife moved back in with her parents in another state.

The release restates the rule the case turns on: where a defendant does not appear, the plaintiff must file an affidavit stating whether the defendant is in military service, with supporting facts, so the court can appoint an attorney for a servicemember and postpone the case if a defense cannot be presented without him. A false affidavit strips those protections away before the court ever knows they applied.

The law behind this: 50 U.S.C. § 3931

Protection of servicemembers against default judgments: read the statute.

It is unacceptable and illegal for a landlord or property management company to file a false affidavit stating that an active duty servicemember is not in military service.

No servicemember should ever be denied housing or have their record tarnished based on a false affidavit.

Who was covered

The one Navy sailor named in the eviction action. The settlement is individual, not a class fund; the policy and procedure requirements bind RMS going forward.

What the settlement paid

• $60,000 in compensation to the sailor and for ten years of credit monitoring for him.
• A $6,000 civil penalty to the United States.
• A requirement that RMS maintain SCRA policies and procedures to avoid future violations.

Why this case matters

No repossession, no rate cap, no class. One box on a court form, checked wrong, produced a federal enforcement action, and the release ties the affidavit directly to the harm: the judgment on his record is what made him homeless. Every landlord and collector who files an affidavit of military service is filing the same document.