Active Duty Servicemembers Also Forced To Fight Sloppy Lenders & Landlords In Foreclosure, Eviction, Auto Repo Actions In Violation Of Federal Law

In Greenacres, Florida, the The Palm Beach Post reports:

• It is one thing to worry about the safety of your spouse who is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is another thing to be afraid that, while he or she is gone, the bank will take away your house and your loved one will have nowhere to come home to. Linda Kellam, 50, knows both those fears. Her husband, James, 49, is serving in Afghanistan with the 1218 Transportation Unit of the Army National Guard, which is based in West Palm Beach. By the time he was deployed July 8, they had both lost their jobs in layoffs and then the bank tried to foreclose on their Greenacres condo.

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• Elaine Martens, a Palm Beach Legal Aid Society attorney, works with the Armed Services Advocacy Project and with [non-profit] agencies [...]. Using the terms of the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act of 2004 Martens can, in many cases, fight foreclosures and evictions due to failure to pay rent, head off the repossession of vehicles or other goods bought in installments, and limit how much interest credit card issuers charge military families even on balances accrued before active service began.

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• Martens currently is fighting a local bank that foreclosed on a man while he was home after serving in Iraq and who is back in Iraq now. "One of the forms the bank has to file is an affidavit saying whether the owner is in the military," Martens said. "The affidavit the bank filed said this person wasn't in the military, but when he bought the house the proof of income he showed was a check stub from the military. Their claim that they didn't know his status is pretty far-fetched."

For the story, see Nonprofits work to spare deployed soldiers and their families from foreclosure.

Go here for other posts on the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act.