Does federal law protect servicemembers from delinquent rent?
Answer: Although I was Marine Corps JAG, I was with the First Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. Our JAG team only did court martials. The JAG officers at Base Legal assisted Marines with civil issues such as evictions and delinquent child support.
In any event, the federal law you reference is the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act ('SCRA'). The SCRA generally applies only to early termination of the lease because a servicemember is being transferred and limits the liability of the tenant to no more than 60 days of the remaining rent owed under the lease. The SCRA, however, probably doesn't apply to protect a 'holdover' tenant who occupied the west Phoenix home but didn't pay rent for two weeks.
Contact real estate attorney Christopher A. Combs at chris@combslawgroup.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Does federal law protect servicemembers from delinquent rent?
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