Thread: Military Renters

Currently we have a tenant who is not paying and possibly may be in the military. I know if they are active military the rules are different especially if they are deployed. Is it any different for someone who is in a military hospital?

None of the information I have for this customer is any good any more and I'm not sure what step to take next.

Hi Wendy,

Is there a specific reason you think the tenant may be enlisted?

There are many ways and some are noted in other threads on this website. One option I had to resort to a couple years back was to send a letter to each branch of the Armed Forces to have them do a records search. We had to enclose a check for $2.50 for each one.

Turns out the guy we were looking for was never in the service and had lied to my employee over the telephone.

As soon as we received all the letters back from the government we were able to auction the unit with a clear conscience. Some of them even refunded the $2.50 to us.

Good luck,
Gina

Here is the link from the previous thread regarding this issue.
http://www.selfstoragetalk.com/day-day-management/276-deployed-military-non-payment.html

Texanadian posted this site a couple of days ago, it's a Dept. of Defense website where you can verify if your tenant is on active duty or not.

https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/scra/owa/home

I had two tenants that claimed they were active duty, even though both have been here in Orlando for over a year, and both were about a year past due on their rent.

They were active duty when they first rented here 3 years ago, and I had copies of their military id. But I had a suspicion that both of them had finished up their enlistment and had been discharged, but were still claiming they were in the military so they wouldn't be bothered with their storage rent right now.

I found out my suspicion was correct, called them both and informed them that I had confirmation they were no longer in the military and that I unless they could prove otherwise I was starting to process their units for auction, and both paid in full the same day, one even went on autopay.

I've got a similar situation. I have a tenant that rented from us in June 2007 and paid rent for June and July and we haven't heard from him since. I have verified via the service members civil relief act website that he is indeed active in the US Army. His family recently told me that he is at Ft McPherson in Georgia.
We haven't gotten ONE payment in over 18 months! The last peice of mail that I sent via the Army was returned marked Return to Sender.
Any Ideas??

You could contact the Public Affairs Office at the base, provide the name and they will contact his/her Unit Commander.

Good luck with your search.

Contacting their unit or base commander is the correct thing to do. These commanders do not like to be involved in your collection efforts, and will pass that information along to your tenant. I believe that things like this can cause all sorts of difficulty for the service member. The Soliers and Sailors Act is to protect service members, not to make it easy for them to skip out on their debts.

Bob (Astro)

Keep in mind that there are circumstances where the person in the military is not able to divulge to the general public if and where they are deployed or often, training for a deployment. The advice the others have given is very good, if by chance you find that they are in fact not in the military and have represented themselves as being Military, do what ever you have to do to get them out of your facility. They disrespect our troops and should be shown no respect. Do everything you can to locate them if indeed they are serving and if possible and the circumstances warrant it, give them a break. I know from experience that bills get left unpaid, forgotten etc when a military person is deployed and many times it is not intentional. my son was given 24 hours notice prior to his actual leaving for Iraq, although they had been told they were going to leave for several weeks. On the other hand, using military service as a cop out is also wrong, there are numerous programs that the military personel can use to help out in a time of need.

I agree completely. Since I have confirmed that my guy is indeed active in the military I most definitely want to give him a break. I just wish I could get some sort of communication through to him or from him. I obviously won't be 'getting rid of him' but I would like to determine some sort of status on him but all I keep hitting are brick walls.

Originally Posted by astro

Contacting their unit or base commander is the correct thing to do. These commanders do not like to be involved in your collection efforts, and will pass that information along to your tenant. I believe that things like this can cause all sorts of difficulty for the service member. The Soliers and Sailors Act is to protect service members, not to make it easy for them to skip out on their debts.

Bob (Astro)

commanders also don't like it when their guys are delinquent in paying for things. The Army, in particular, takes a dim view of bad credit records to the extent that it can be a factor in denying promotion. If there is something that you cannot be told, you will be told that in so many words. Otherwise, unit commanders do not like their guys being perceived as deadbeats because it reflects on the service as a whole.

Yup, we had to call Ft. Bragg regarding one of our late paying soldiers. Within a week, we had a money order for $500 arrive.