Servicemembers Civil Relief Act – Batch Processing Services Available

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Centralized Verification Service

WASHINGTON, DC – September 6, 2011 – (RealEstateRama) — The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Centralized Verification Service (SCRACVS) has rolled out a secure site that permits batch processing of active-duty military verifications under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

The Act, which went into effect in 2003, was a comprehensive revision of the former Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act.  Enforcement action on court judgments evictions, foreclosures, and seizures must be handled with caution to ensure that the consumer or debtor is not on active military duty and entitled to protection under the Act.   Protected are all active duty servicemembers (including commissioned officers of the Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), Reservists, and members of the National Guard while on active duty.

In some cases, courts requiring affidavit that due diligence has been exercised to determine military status.  Many industries are affected and can easily run afoul of this important legislation.

The Act introduced new civil protections and expanded and clarified others, including:

• Default Judgments
• Stay of Proceedings
• Cap on Interest Rates
• Protection from Eviction
• Mortgages
• Termination of Leases
• Life Insurance
• Tax Liability and Residency

The Act makes it unlawful to take certain collections action against persons on active military duty (or recently retired) and a series of court settlements between government entities and lenders underscores the need to maintain current information on a person’s military status.

SCRACVS has long maintained its retail site at www.ServicemembersCivilReliefAct.com which enables verifications of active military duty even if the user does not have the subject’s social security number.  The site has indexing capabilities and highly automated.    However, if a lender needs information on thousands of names at a time, the retail site became impractical.

The newest offering of batch processing by SCRACVS is targeted to high-volume inquirers such as lenders, servicers, landlords, and their counsel whose existing databases include the subjects’ social security numbers.    Such entities are able to process large batches by either HTTPS or FTP File Exchange (MS Excel, Delimited Text) to a secure server.  Usually within the hour the user is advised that the response file is ready for downloading (time may be extended depending upon size of the submitted file) or the results file can be programmatically delivered to the client’s system.

The response file indicates whether each individual is on active duty, the branch of service, the start date, and, if applicable, the termination date (only if the active duty has been in the past year).  The client can take the response file and integrate that data into its own database.   Appended to each record is a link to the official, time-stamped Military Status Report issued by the Department of Defense, and the HTML certificates are stored perpetually

All data components of the SCRACVS sites are encrypted with 128-bit SSL encryption.

For additional information on the batch processing services or the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, contact:

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Centralized Verification Service

Contact:
A Division of D.C. Registered Agent, Inc.
1120 20th St NW #S-300-RLK
Washington, DC 20036-3437
Tel. (202) 462-0600