U.S. Department
of Justice
United States v. San Diego Family Housing, LLC (S.D. Cal.)
On November 1, 2016, the court entered a consent order in United States v. San Diego Family Housing, LLC (S.D. Cal.). The complaint, which was filed by the United States Attorney’s Office on August 10, 2016, alleged that the owner and operator of dozens of on-base and off-base military housing communities throughout Southern California obtained default eviction judgments against active duty servicemembers without filing proper affidavits of military service, as required by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The consent order requires the payment of $140,000 in damages to four servicemembers ($35,000 each) and a $60,000 civil penalty, for a total of $200,000. The consent order also requires the defendants to vacate the eviction judgments, forgive any deficiency balances, and ask the credit bureaus to remove the evictions from the servicemembers’ credit reports. In the future, the defendants will have to check the Department of Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) database and file a proper affidavit of military service before seeking a default judgment against any tenant in an eviction action.
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