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Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Complaint

Produced by Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
Created July 2013

Everyone gets a Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Complaint. When you get this complaint:

  1. call the law firm that filed the complaint.
  2. Ask them, “Is this complaint a complaint for Judicial Foreclosure”?
  3. If they say “No,” and you are not in active military service, you do not need to do anything.
  4. If they say, “Yes,” you must answer in 20 days. See Judicial Foreclosure.

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act protects you from foreclosure while you are in active military service.

You only need to do something about this notice if you are in active military, or you were recently discharged.

If you are active in military service

You have twenty days to file an answer.

If you are in active military service or you were just discharged and you answer the complaint, the bank* should not foreclose.

If you are not active in military service

If you are not in active military service, you do not have to do anything.

Later, you will get a judgment that says no one living in the property is entitled to the Servicemembers protection. You do not have to do anything.

Banks file this complaint for every foreclosure because they do not want to foreclose on anyone in the active military. It is against the servicemembers civil relief act to foreclose on anyone in the active military.

The complaint asks the judge to say no one living in your house is in the active military. If the judge says this, they give the bank permission to foreclose without violating the servicemembers civil relief act.

Note

The only answer you can file for this complaint is that you are in active military service.

If you think the bank is doing something wrong, you have to file your own complaint This is a separate case from the Servicemembers Civil Relief Complaint case that the bank filed.

Endnotes

* When we use the word 'bank' we mean your lender. This could be a mortgage company a trust or even a person.

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