A Navy sailor will be paid $60,000 by a Florida property management company that obtained an “unlawful” eviction notice against him, according to federal prosecutors.
The legal effects of the eviction, according to court documents, turned the sailor “functionally homeless” while his wife was forced to live with her parents in a different state, according to court documents.
Rental Marketing Solutions, LLC, a St. Petersburg, Florida-based property management company, will have to pay $60,000 for the “unlawful eviction judgment” against the active duty sailor in a federal settlement, Department of Justice officials announced Wednesday.
The sailor, who is referred to as “A.H.” in federal court documents, was “mistakenly” included in the legal filings of a February 2024 eviction action at a property where his mother resided but where the sailor had not lived for nearly four years. At the time, the sailor, who was a Petty Officer 3rd Class, was assigned to the USS Nimitz based at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington.
The sailor learned about the eviction when he moved out of his on-base housing in Washington in August 2024 and began looking for a rental home for him and his wife. The couple was turned away by at least a dozen landlords because the eviction judgment appeared on the sailor’s credit and background checks, according to court documents.
Instead of moving into a new apartment, the sailor took leave to help his wife move in with her parents in San Diego, California. The couple lived separately for four months, paying for the sailor’s wife to travel back and forth from California.
While his wife lived in San Diego, the sailor was “functionally homeless,” prosecutors said. Some nights, the sailor slept on the berthed ship, “which had no heat,” and other times couch-surfed with friends, or camped, according to court documents.
“Spending many months, approximately eight of which while serving on active duty in the Navy, trying to correct the invalid eviction judgment against him, being unable to obtain housing for months, and still being in a vulnerable position under a verbal month-to-month lease to this day have had tremendous negative impacts on A.H. and his mental health,” federal officials said in court documents.
The case was brought against the management company for violating the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, or SCRA, a federal law that offers financial and legal protections to active-duty troops. The law allows service members to postpone or suspend civil liabilities like debt collection, mortgage payments, eviction notices, and lease terminations.
Previous cases include a 2024 settlement with a Virginia landlord company that charged sailors thousands of dollars in illegal lease termination fees and extra rental payments, and a 2025 settlement where an Auto Center towed a sailor’s car while he was on deployment, and sold it at an auction.
DOJ officials said in court documents that the Florida landlord company violated the SCRA since it did not have a process to verify whether he was a sailor or “protected service member.” Because they didn’t verify his active duty status, the sailor was not afforded SCRA legal protections as part of the eviction court process.
For violating federal law, the property company is required to pay $60,000 to the sailor and ten years’ worth of credit monitoring for him. The company must also pay a $6,000 civil penalty and maintain policies that follow SCRA requirements.
