How a False Affidavit Bankrupted a Property Manager's Eviction Strategy
Department of Justice
The Department of Justice finalized a severe enforcement action on May 13, 2026, against Rental Marketing Solutions, a Limited Liability Company, levying a combined $66,000 in penalties and restitution over violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a federal law protecting active-duty military from specific legal and financial burdens.
This agency offensive was triggered by a surge in complaints from military legal assistance attorneys exposing how property management networks aggressively utilize automated eviction software to bypass the Defense Manpower Data Center, the federal database required to verify military status.
This is not a new regulation, but it represents the largest single-servicemember payout extracted by the department for a false military service affidavit.
Property managers, corporate landlords, and Real Estate Investment Trusts, companies that own or finance income-producing real estate, across the country are the explicit targets here.
If your firm pursues an eviction and the defendant fails to appear in court, the law requires you to file a sworn affidavit detailing whether or not that individual is an active-duty service member.
Filing a false declaration intentionally bypasses the court's mandate to appoint legal counsel and pause proceedings for deployed military personnel.
That paperwork shortcut just cost a St. Petersburg property management firm heavily.
The daily operational friction for real estate firms handling evictions is absolute.
There are no exemptions based on firm size, portfolio volume, or geographic location.
Every single eviction action resulting in a no-show defendant requires verified, accurate supporting facts regarding military status.
In this specific case, the firm initiated an eviction for a property the Navy sailor had not occupied for years.
The company then falsely swore he was not on active duty while he was deployed to a naval shipyard in Washington state.
The resulting default judgment wrecked the sailor's background check and rendered him homeless.
The reality for compliance officers is stark. Beyond the $60,000 direct compensation and ten years of mandated credit monitoring for the victim, the firm must pay a $6,000 civil penalty.
The settlement also dictates the firm must overhaul and maintain strict internal policies to prevent future violations.
Landlords relying on automated eviction filings or sloppy administrative record-keeping face severe financial exposure.
The entire property technology sector will now be forced into an expensive infrastructural pivot, required to integrate mandatory, manual verification gateways into their software to cross-reference military databases before generating any court filings.
This administrative bottleneck will drastically slow down the eviction pipeline, forcing corporate housing operators to absorb months of dead rent while verification clears.
To insulate their margins from these extended legal delays, landlords will systematically raise baseline rents and tighten upfront credit requirements for civilian applicants, inadvertently squeezing middle-class renters out of competitive housing markets.
The Justice Department has already secured $489 million in similar enforcement actions over the last fifteen years.
This latest settlement establishes an expensive new benchmark for individual damages.
