The SCRA Civil Relief Act gives Servicemembers and their dependents relief from some various legal issues that can upset and drastically affect a person’s life. The Servicemember Civil Relief Act was an expansion of the earlier SSCRA act, involving Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief. The SCRA give quite a wide variety of different protections for those who are called to active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces, for those individuals enlisting or joining, or for those Servicemembers who are deployed on active duty.
The purpose of the SCRA Civil Relief Act is to allow certain obligations of a civil nature to be suspended, or postponed to let the service member devote his/her entire attention toward fulfilling their duty. It is also meant to help remove stress when a service member is called to active duty service without a lot of warning or time to prepare. Some of the examples of things that are covered by the SCRA Civil Relief Act, and that service members are protected against by the act include:
-Outstanding Taxes.
-Pending Trials of a civil nature.
-Terminations of contracts.
-Terminations of Leases or Rental Agreements.
-Some types of Credit Card debt that is outstanding.
-Mortgage Payments.
Other provisions covered under the new law include:
-Preventing eviction while on active duty if rent is less then $2,720 dollars a month.
-Gives right to terminate a housing lease to Servicemember who receives a PCS order, or who is deployed for more than ninety days.
-Restricts the amount of interest that a Servicemember can be charged to six percent.
-Mandates a monthly payment reduction when interest above six percent is normally charged to make up the difference between six percent and what is in the contract.
-Updates and insures that life insurance policies and protections for Reserve and Activated Guard members be increased to (maximum) an amount of $250,000 dollars of insurance coverage that the Federal Government will protect against default.
-Prevents double taxation when a spouse works and is taxes in another state than where they have their permanent residence.
The SRCA Civil Relief Act covers all members of the National Guard on active duty, all Reservists on active duty, and all full time Servicemembers on active duty. For the Servicemember the date of eligibility begins the first day of active duty and terminates from thirty to ninety days after ending active duty. There are other miscellaneous protections offered under the SRCA Civil Relief Act but these are the major ones.
