Checklist · Military and Veterans

USERRA and SCRA Compliance for Employers and Creditors: A Practical Checklist

38 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4335

Type: Checklist
Jurisdiction: National
Date: 2024-07-23
Topic: Military and Veterans

Two federal statutes protect Americans who serve in uniform, and they run on completely different tracks. USERRA (38 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4335) governs employers: it requires you to hold a job open, to keep the returning servicemember on the seniority "escalator," to restore pensions and benefits, and to refrain from discharging the returnee except for cause — and it carries no statute of limitations at all. The SCRA (50 U.S.C. §§ 3901-4043) governs creditors, landlords, and litigants: it demands a military-status affidavit before any default judgment, caps pre-service interest at 6%, voids foreclosures taken without a court order, and lets servicemembers walk away from leases on deployment orders. This checklist walks both regimes phase by phase, with the traps that generate the DOL referrals and the DOJ consent decrees. It closes with a consolidated one-glance checklist, the primary authority, and the related UpLaw resources.

USERRA and SCRA Compliance for Employers and Creditors: A Practical Checklist

Military and Veterans > Military and Veterans Law | Published 23 July 2024 - Updated 29 March 2026 | UpLaw - uplaw.us

Most employers and lenders do not set out to injure a servicemember. They injure one by accident — by running a routine default-judgment docket, by treating a returning reservist as a new hire, by foreclosing on a mortgage that a deployment made impossible to pay. USERRA and the SCRA punish the accident just as surely as the intent.

Keywords: USERRA, SCRA, reemployment rights, escalator position, military leave, 6% interest cap, default judgment affidavit, DMDC verification, foreclosure protection, lease termination, eviction protection, Military Lending Act, employer compliance, creditor compliance

How to use this checklist

This document has two halves because military-protection law has two halves. Part One is for employers, HR departments, and the counsel who advise them: the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, 38 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4335, and its implementing regulations at 20 C.F.R. Part 1002. Part Two is for creditors, servicers, landlords, and any litigant who might one day move for a default judgment: the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 3901-4043.

Both statutes are federal and apply nationwide. Both are floors, not ceilings — USERRA expressly says so at 38 U.S.C. § 4302(b), and many states layer on more generous protections (state active duty ordered by a governor, for instance, is generally not USERRA-covered service, and state law fills that gap). Confirm your state's overlay. The deeper doctrinal treatment lives in Military and Veterans Law: A Comprehensive Guide to USERRA, the SCRA, and VA Benefits; the map of every related resource is The Military and Veterans Law Toolkit.

Our running example. Sergeant First Class Dana Voss is a dispatch supervisor at Kestrel Ridge Logistics, a 140-employee freight company. She is an Army Reservist. In March she receives mobilization orders for a fourteen-month deployment. She has a mortgage with Copperline Savings Bank and a car loan she took out two years ago at 11.9%. Nearly everything that can go wrong for an employer and a creditor is about to go wrong for Kestrel Ridge and Copperline.

PART ONE — USERRA (employers)

Phase 1 — Recognize covered service and the employee's notice obligation

[ ] Confirm the absence is for "service in the uniformed services" — active duty, active duty for training, initial active duty, inactive duty training (drill weekends), full-time National Guard duty under federal authority, funeral honors duty, and absence for a fitness-for-duty examination. 38 U.S.C. § 4303(13).
[ ] Do not condition anything on the type of service. Voluntary enlistment counts. So does a weekend drill.
[ ] Confirm the employee gave advance notice — written or verbal, from the employee or an appropriate military officer. 38 U.S.C. § 4312(a)(1).
[ ] Recognize that notice is excused where military necessity prevents it, or where giving it was otherwise impossible or unreasonable. 38 U.S.C. § 4312(b).
[ ] Do not demand documentation, orders, or a specific return date as a precondition of leave. You may request documentation on return for service exceeding 30 days. 38 U.S.C. § 4312(f).
[ ] Track cumulative service with your organization against the five-year limit — and know the long list of service that does not count toward it (§ 4312(c)): required training, drills, involuntary retention, deployments ordered by the President or Congress, and more. Most reservist mobilizations are exempt.
[ ] Do not require the employee to use accrued vacation or PTO. The employee may elect to. 38 U.S.C. § 4316(d).

Why it matters, and the traps. The most common opening error is treating military leave as a discretionary accommodation instead of a statutory entitlement. USERRA does not ask whether the absence is convenient, whether the employee volunteered, or whether the company is short-staffed. The five-year cap is real but is functionally a mirage for most reservists, because virtually every category of contingency mobilization is excluded from the count. Employers who tell an employee "you've used up your military leave" without doing the § 4312(c) exclusion analysis are handing plaintiff's counsel a case.

The second trap is the informal-notice trap. Kestrel Ridge's HR manual says leave requests must be submitted on Form HR-14, thirty days out. SFC Voss tells her shift supervisor verbally, ten days out, because that is when she got the call. That is valid notice. A policy cannot manufacture a forfeiture that the statute does not allow — a lesson that belongs in every handbook, as Drafting an Employee Handbook That Holds Up: A Practical Checklist explains.

Phase 2 — During service: health coverage and benefit accrual

[ ] Offer continuation of health plan coverage for the employee and dependents for up to 24 months of absence. 38 U.S.C. § 4317(a)(1).
[ ] Charge correctly: if the service period is 30 days or less, the employee pays no more than the normal employee share. Longer than 30 days, you may charge up to 102% of the full premium. § 4317(a)(2).
[ ] On reemployment, reinstate coverage with no waiting period and no pre-existing-condition exclusion — except for VA/DoD-determined service-connected conditions. § 4317(b).
[ ] Treat the absence as a furlough or leave of absence, and give the employee any non-seniority benefit generally provided to other employees on comparable leaves. 38 U.S.C. § 4316(b)(1).
[ ] Audit what "comparable leave" means at your company. If you pay employees on jury duty or bereavement leave, that is your comparator — not unpaid personal leave.
[ ] Continue to accrue seniority-based benefits as if the employee never left (see Phase 3).

Why it matters, and the traps. Section 4316(b)(1) is a parity rule, and parity is measured against your own practices, not against a statutory minimum. An employer that offers generous paid leave for a broken leg but nothing for a deployment has created an unlawful classification. The 24-month coverage window (extended from 18 months by the 2004 amendments) runs from the beginning of the absence, and the 102% figure is a ceiling, not a target — nothing stops you from continuing to pay the employer share, and many employers do.

Phase 3 — Track the ESCALATOR position, not the job they left

[ ] Determine the escalator position: the position of employment the servicemember would have attained with reasonable certainty had she never left. 38 U.S.C. § 4313(a); 20 C.F.R. § 1002.191.
[ ] Apply automatic and seniority-based progressions: step increases, longevity raises, scheduled promotions, shift bids, accrual rates.
[ ] Recognize that the escalator can move down. If a plantwide layoff would have reached the employee, the escalator lands there. 20 C.F.R. § 1002.194.
[ ] For service of 90 days or less: reemploy in the escalator position; if she cannot become qualified after reasonable employer efforts, restore the pre-service position. § 4313(a)(1).
[ ] For service of more than 90 days: reemploy in the escalator position or a position of like seniority, status, and pay. § 4313(a)(2).
[ ] Make reasonable efforts to qualify the employee — training, retraining, refreshers — at employer expense. § 4313(a)(1)(A), (a)(2)(A); § 4303(10).

Why it matters, and the traps. The escalator principle is older than USERRA itself. In Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275 (1946), the Supreme Court held under USERRA's World War II predecessor that a returning veteran "does not step back on the seniority escalator at the point he stepped off," but at the precise point he would have occupied had he stayed. Every modern reemployment dispute is a fight about where that step is.

Worked example. Voss returns after fourteen months. In her absence, Kestrel Ridge automatically promoted every dispatch supervisor with five years' tenure to Senior Dispatch Supervisor and moved them to a salaried pay band. Voss crossed five years while deployed. Kestrel Ridge puts her back in her old hourly supervisor slot "because that's the job she left." That is a straightforward § 4313 violation: the escalator carried her into the senior band, and her old job is not the position she is owed. Note the mirror image — if Kestrel Ridge had eliminated the entire dispatch department in a bona fide reduction in force that would have reached her, the escalator would carry her down, and USERRA would not require the company to invent a job.

Phase 4 — The reemployment application deadlines (they scale with service length)

[ ] Service of 30 days or less (and fitness-exam absences): the employee must report at the beginning of the first full regularly scheduled work period on the first full calendar day after completing service, allowing safe transportation home plus eight hours' rest. § 4312(e)(1)(A).
[ ] Service of 31 to 180 days: the employee must apply for reemployment within 14 days after completing service. § 4312(e)(1)(C).
[ ] Service of more than 180 days: the employee must apply within 90 days. § 4312(e)(1)(D).
[ ] Hospitalized or convalescing from a service-connected injury: the deadline is extended for the period of recovery, up to two years, and further if circumstances beyond the person's control make reporting impossible. § 4312(e)(2)(A).
[ ] Understand what a late application does — and does not — do: the employee does not automatically forfeit reemployment rights but becomes subject to the employer's ordinary rules on unexcused absence and discipline. § 4312(e)(3).
[ ] Confirm the discharge was not dishonorable or otherwise disqualifying. § 4304.

Why it matters, and the traps. Employers habitually invert this rule. The deadline scales with the length of the service, not with the employer's convenience, and the trigger is "completion of service," not the date the DD-214 arrives. The single most dangerous misreading is the belief that a missed deadline extinguishes the right. It does not. Section 4312(e)(3) converts a late application into an ordinary attendance question — and if your attendance policy would not fire a civilian for the same lapse, firing the veteran for it is a § 4311 discrimination case wearing a disguise.

Phase 5 — Reemploy promptly; restore seniority, status, and pay

[ ] Reemploy promptly. The regulation reads "as soon as practicable," which for a typical absence means within two weeks of the application absent unusual circumstances. 20 C.F.R. § 1002.181.
[ ] Restore seniority and seniority-based rights and benefits as though employment had been continuous. § 4316(a).
[ ] Recompute pay at the escalator rate, including raises the employee would have received.
[ ] Restore accrued leave banks, vacation accrual rates, and service-based eligibility.
[ ] Do not require reapplication, reinterviewing, a new probationary period, or re-passing a hiring screen.
[ ] Document the escalator analysis in writing, contemporaneously.

Why it matters, and the traps. "Prompt" is a genuine obligation. Putting a returning reservist on unpaid hold for a month while HR "figures out headcount" is a violation that accrues back pay every day it continues. Back pay under USERRA is calculated on lost wages and benefits, and a willful violation doubles the award as liquidated damages under 38 U.S.C. § 4323(d)(1)(C) — a structure that will look familiar to anyone who has worked with Wage and Hour Law Under the FLSA: A Comprehensive Guide or Damages in Employment Litigation: Back Pay, Statutory Caps, and Punitive Awards.

Phase 6 — Pension restoration and make-up contributions

[ ] Treat the service period as service with the employer for vesting and benefit accrual. 38 U.S.C. § 4318(a)(2)(A).
[ ] Fund the employer's share of any accrued benefit attributable to the service period. § 4318(b)(1).
[ ] Permit the employee to make up employee contributions or elective deferrals over a period equal to three times the service period, capped at five years. § 4318(b)(2).
[ ] Make the corresponding matching contributions as the employee makes up hers — but only to the extent she does.
[ ] Compute the make-up amounts using the compensation the employee would have received during the service period. § 4318(b)(3).
[ ] Coordinate with your plan administrator and record-keeper before the employee returns, not after.

Why it matters, and the traps. The Supreme Court held in Alabama Power Co. v. Davis, 431 U.S. 581 (1977), that pension credit was a perquisite of seniority owed to a returning veteran under USERRA's predecessor statute — the modern § 4318 codifies and expands that idea. The trap is administrative: 401(k) recordkeepers do not spontaneously open a three-year make-up window. If nobody tells the plan, the window quietly closes and you have an uncorrected qualification defect layered on top of a USERRA claim.

Phase 7 — The limited employer defenses

[ ] Assess whether changed circumstances make reemployment impossible or unreasonable — e.g., the position and the entire department were eliminated in a bona fide RIF. § 4312(d)(1)(A).
[ ] Assess whether accommodating a disabled returnee would impose an undue hardship. § 4312(d)(1)(B).
[ ] Assess whether the pre-service employment was for a brief, nonrecurrent period with no reasonable expectation of continuing indefinitely. § 4312(d)(1)(C).
[ ] Understand that the employer bears the burden of proving every one of these. § 4312(d)(2).
[ ] Do not treat "we hired a replacement" as a defense. It is not one, ever.
[ ] Do not treat "business was slow" as changed circumstances unless it genuinely eliminated the escalator position.

Why it matters, and the traps. These three defenses are narrow by design and the burden allocation makes them harder still. The "brief, nonrecurrent" defense does not rescue an employer who hired a seasonal worker and kept renewing her; the recurrence defeats it. And the replacement-hire fallacy is the single most common employer mistake in this area — USERRA contemplates that the employer will backfill, and it requires the employer to unwind the backfill when the servicemember returns. If asserting one of these defenses is on the table, they must be pleaded and proved like any other affirmative defense; see Answering a Complaint and Pleading Affirmative Defenses: A Practical Checklist.

Phase 8 — Disability-related reemployment and accommodation

[ ] Make reasonable efforts to accommodate a disability incurred or aggravated during service so the employee can perform the escalator position. § 4313(a)(3)(A).
[ ] If she still cannot qualify, place her in a position of equivalent seniority, status, and pay that she is qualified for or could become qualified for. § 4313(a)(3)(B).
[ ] If neither is possible, place her in the nearest approximation consistent with her circumstances. § 4313(a)(3)(B).
[ ] Run the parallel ADA analysis; USERRA's accommodation duty is independent of and in some respects broader than the ADA's.
[ ] Extend the reporting deadline for convalescence, up to two years. § 4312(e)(2)(A).

Why it matters, and the traps. USERRA's disability rules are not the ADA's, and the reflex to route everything through an ADA interactive process will under-deliver. Where the ADA requires accommodation of a qualified individual in her existing job, § 4313(a)(3) affirmatively requires the employer to find a landing spot down a defined cascade. The interactive-process discipline is the same discipline you already apply under statutes like the PWFA — see Accommodating Pregnancy and Nursing Under the PWFA and PUMP Act: A Practical Checklist.

Phase 9 — Post-reemployment protection from discharge except for cause

[ ] If the service period exceeded 180 days: do not discharge except for cause for one year after reemployment. 38 U.S.C. § 4316(c)(1).
[ ] If the service period was 31 to 180 days: the protected window is 180 days. § 4316(c)(2).
[ ] Understand the two flavors of "cause": (a) conduct-based cause, and (b) a legitimate nondiscriminatory business reason such as a bona fide RIF that would have reached the employee anyway. 20 C.F.R. § 1002.248.
[ ] For conduct-based cause, be prepared to prove it was reasonable to discharge for that conduct and that the employee had notice the conduct would result in discharge.
[ ] Recognize the burden is on the employer, not on the employee.
[ ] Escalate every discharge decision inside the protected window to counsel. Every one.

Why it matters, and the traps. This is a period of near-just-cause employment carved out of an at-will world, and at-will reflexes kill employers here. "We're at-will in this state" is not a defense; USERRA preempts it for the protected window under § 4302(b). Build the trigger into your HR system so that a termination request for a recently returned servicemember cannot be processed without a legal review — a control that belongs alongside the other structural safeguards in Building a Legally Sound Employee Handbook.

Phase 10 — Anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation

[ ] Do not deny initial employment, reemployment, retention, promotion, or any benefit because of membership, application, performance of service, or obligation to serve. 38 U.S.C. § 4311(a).
[ ] Do not retaliate against anyone — servicemember or not — who files a USERRA complaint, testifies, assists, or exercises a right. § 4311(b).
[ ] Apply the motivating factor standard: liability attaches if military status was a motivating factor, and then shifts to the employer to prove it would have taken the same action anyway. § 4311(c).
[ ] Purge biased inputs from decisions. Under Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 562 U.S. 411 (2011), an employer is liable under USERRA when a supervisor acting with anti-military animus performs an act intended to cause an adverse action and that act is a proximate cause of the ultimate decision — even if the ultimate decisionmaker is neutral.
[ ] Train managers that "I can't keep covering your drill weekends" is evidence.
[ ] Post the DOL "Your Rights Under USERRA" notice. § 4334.

Why it matters, and the traps. Staub is the case every HR department must internalize. The "independent investigation" defense that a neutral decisionmaker supplies does not launder a biased supervisor's report; if the biased act proximately caused the outcome, the employer answers for it. The motivating-factor standard is also materially friendlier to plaintiffs than the but-for standards that govern parts of the discrimination landscape described in Employment Discrimination Law: A Comprehensive Guide.

Phase 11 — Remember: USERRA has NO statute of limitations

[ ] Understand that no limitations period applies to any USERRA claim. 38 U.S.C. § 4327(b).
[ ] Understand that laches does not apply either. 20 C.F.R. § 1002.311.
[ ] Retain USERRA-related records — leave requests, orders, escalator analyses, reemployment offers, pension make-up notices — indefinitely. Not for three years. Indefinitely.
[ ] Know the enforcement channels: DOL-VETS investigation (§ 4322), referral to the Attorney General or the Office of Special Counsel, or a private action in district court (§ 4323).
[ ] Know that a prevailing claimant pays no court fees or costs (§ 4323(h)(1)) and may recover attorney's fees (§ 4323(h)(2)).

Why it matters, and the traps. Everything about ordinary employment litigation defense assumes a clock. USERRA has none. A 2009 reemployment error can be litigated in 2029, and by then your escalator witnesses have retired, the shift-bid records have been purged under a three-year retention schedule, and the plaintiff's uncontradicted testimony is the whole record. The single highest-value USERRA control an employer can adopt is a permanent-retention rule for military-leave files.

PART TWO — SCRA (creditors, landlords, litigants)

Phase 12 — SCREEN FOR MILITARY STATUS before seeking any default judgment

[ ] Before requesting a default judgment in any civil proceeding, file an affidavit stating whether the defendant is in military service, or that the plaintiff is unable to determine. 50 U.S.C. § 3931(b)(1).
[ ] Support the affidavit with facts. A DMDC verification certificate is the standard proof; a bare recital of "not in military service" is not.
[ ] If the defendant is in military service, the court must appoint an attorney to represent him before entering judgment. § 3931(b)(2).
[ ] Expect the court to require a bond to indemnify the servicemember against loss if the judgment is later set aside. § 3931(b)(3).
[ ] Expect a mandatory stay of at least 90 days if the appointed attorney cannot locate the defendant or the court finds there may be a defense requiring his presence. § 3931(d).
[ ] Know the exposure for a knowingly false affidavit: a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and/or up to one year's imprisonment. § 3931(c).
[ ] Know that the servicemember may reopen a default judgment on application filed during service or within 90 days after termination of service, on a showing that military service materially affected his ability to defend and that he has a meritorious defense. § 3931(g).
[ ] Build DMDC screening into your default-judgment workflow as a hard gate — no affidavit, no motion.

Why it matters, and the traps. This is where creditors get destroyed at scale. The SCRA default-judgment provision is not a formality; it is the mechanism that makes an unscreened default judgment against a deployed servicemember reopenable years later, and a portfolio of such judgments is a portfolio of contingent liabilities. The Department of Justice has repeatedly obtained substantial settlements from lenders and servicers for pattern-or-practice SCRA violations, and the recurring fact pattern is exactly this: a high-volume collections operation that never checked. Verification through the Defense Manpower Data Center is fast and inexpensive. A void judgment is neither. Collections teams already running the compliance disciplines in FDCPA Debt Collection Compliance: A Practical Checklist should treat the SCRA screen as a sibling control, not an afterthought.

Phase 13 — Stays of proceedings

[ ] On a servicemember's application, grant a stay of at least 90 days where current military duty materially affects his ability to appear. 50 U.S.C. § 3932(b).
[ ] Require the two-part submission: a letter from the servicemember stating how duty materially affects his ability to appear and when he will be available, and a letter from his commanding officer stating that duty prevents appearance and that leave is not authorized. § 3932(b)(2).
[ ] Know that additional stays are discretionary and that a court refusing one must appoint counsel. § 3932(d)(2).
[ ] Know that the servicemember's stay application does not constitute an appearance or waive any defense, including lack of personal jurisdiction. § 3932(c).
[ ] Check whether the statute of limitations is tolled for the period of service. 50 U.S.C. § 3936.

Why it matters, and the traps. Boone v. Lightner, 319 U.S. 561 (1943), established that stays under the SCRA's predecessor are committed to judicial discretion and are not a license for a servicemember to abuse the process. But the tolling provision is different: in Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511 (1993), the Supreme Court held that the tolling of limitations periods applies by its plain terms regardless of whether military service actually prejudiced the servicemember. Do not assume a claim is time-barred without running the tolling math.

Phase 14 — The 6% interest cap on PRE-SERVICE obligations

[ ] Apply the cap only to obligations incurred before the servicemember entered military service. 50 U.S.C. § 3937(a)(1). Debts incurred during service are not covered.
[ ] On receipt of written notice plus a copy of the military orders, reduce interest to 6% for the period of military service — and, for mortgages, for one year after service ends. § 3937(a)(1), (b)(1).
[ ] Accept the notice if delivered not later than 180 days after the date of termination or release from service. § 3937(b)(1).
[ ] Apply the reduction retroactively to the date the servicemember was called to service. § 3937(b)(2).
[ ] Forgive — do not defer — the interest above 6%. § 3937(a)(2). It is gone.
[ ] Reduce the periodic payment by the amount of interest forgiven. § 3937(a)(3). Keeping the payment the same and applying the difference to principal is a violation.
[ ] Read "interest" broadly: it includes service charges, renewal charges, fees, and any other charges except bona fide insurance. § 3937(d)(1).
[ ] If you believe the servicemember's ability to pay is not materially affected, you must go to court for relief. You may not simply decline. § 3937(c).
[ ] Separately, if you extend consumer credit to a servicemember, comply with the Military Lending Act, 10 U.S.C. § 987, and 32 C.F.R. Part 232 — a 36% Military Annual Percentage Rate cap, mandatory disclosures, and a prohibition on mandatory arbitration clauses in covered credit.

Why it matters, and the traps. The two classic errors here are (1) deferring rather than forgiving the excess interest, and (2) holding the payment amount constant. Both are visible on the face of a servicing record and both are exactly what DOJ and the CFPB look for. And note the boundary: the SCRA's 6% cap and the MLA's 36% MAPR cap are different statutes with different triggers. The SCRA looks backward to pre-service debt; the MLA regulates new consumer credit extended to covered borrowers, and it voids the arbitration clause you would otherwise rely on — a point worth internalizing before you next reach for Drafting an Arbitration Clause: A Practical Checklist.

Worked example. SFC Voss writes to Copperline Savings Bank with her orders. Her car loan sits at 11.9%. Copperline drops the rate to 6%, keeps her $487 monthly payment unchanged, and applies the difference to principal — "she's better off," the servicer's note says. She is not: § 3937(a)(3) entitles her to the reduced payment, which is the whole point of a statute designed to preserve cash flow for a deployed soldier's family. That is a violation, and it is one a regulator can find with a query.

Phase 15 — Residential and motor-vehicle lease termination

[ ] Honor termination of a residential, business, professional, or agricultural lease where the lease was entered before entry into service, or entered during service and the servicemember then receives PCS orders or deployment orders of 90 days or more. SCRA § 305, 50 U.S.C. § 3955(b)(1).
[ ] Honor termination of a motor-vehicle lease where the lease predates service and the service period is 180 days or more, or where the servicemember receives PCS orders outside the continental United States or a deployment of 180 days or more. § 3955(b)(2).
[ ] Accept written notice plus a copy of the orders, delivered by hand, private carrier, or mail with return receipt. § 3955(c).
[ ] Compute the effective date correctly: for leases with monthly rent, termination is effective 30 days after the first date on which the next rental payment is due following proper delivery of the notice. § 3955(d)(1).
[ ] Refund prepaid rent on a pro rata basis; return the security deposit. § 3955(f).
[ ] Do not charge early-termination fees, lease-break penalties, or motor-vehicle early-termination charges. § 3955(e)-(f).
[ ] Extend the protection to dependents where applicable. 50 U.S.C. § 3959.

Why it matters, and the traps. The 30-days-after-the-next-due-date rule is the arithmetic that landlords get wrong, and it does not round in the landlord's favor. Charging a lease-break fee to a soldier with PCS orders is not a business dispute; it is a federal violation with a private right of action attached. Landlords should slot this next to their ordinary compliance discipline in Residential Landlord-Tenant Compliance and Eviction: A Practical Checklist.

Phase 16 — Eviction protection and the court-order requirement

[ ] Do not evict a servicemember or dependents from a primary residence during military service without a court order. SCRA § 301, 50 U.S.C. § 3951(a).
[ ] Check the rent ceiling. The protection applies where the monthly rent does not exceed a statutory amount that is adjusted annually for inflation and published by the Department of Defense. Do not rely on a number you memorized — look up the current figure before you act.
[ ] Expect the court to stay the eviction for up to 90 days (or longer, in its discretion) if military service materially affects the tenant's ability to pay. § 3951(b)(1).
[ ] Expect the court, in lieu of or in addition to a stay, to adjust the lease obligation to preserve the interests of both parties. § 3951(b)(2).
[ ] Know the criminal exposure: knowingly evicting or attempting to evict in violation of § 3951 is a misdemeanor. § 3951(c).
[ ] Apply the same court-order requirement to repossession under an installment contract for a purchase or lease where a deposit or installment was paid before service. 50 U.S.C. § 3952.
[ ] Apply the same requirement to enforcement of storage liens. 50 U.S.C. § 3958.

Why it matters, and the traps. A self-help repossession that would be perfectly lawful under Article 9 of the UCC becomes a federal violation — and potentially a crime — when the debtor is a covered servicemember and the contract predates service. Repossession agents do not run DMDC checks. Your compliance function must.

Phase 17 — Mortgage and foreclosure protections

[ ] Confirm the obligation is secured by a mortgage or deed of trust on property owned by the servicemember and originated before the period of military service. 50 U.S.C. § 3953(a).
[ ] Do not sell, foreclose, or seize the property during military service, or during the statutory post-service window, except on a court order or a valid written waiver. § 3953(c).
[ ] Verify the current length of the post-service window before you act. Congress has amended it repeatedly (it has been 90 days, nine months, and one year at various times; the current period is one year). Confirm the figure in force on your date of action.
[ ] Understand the consequence: a nonjudicial foreclosure taken in violation of § 3953 is not valid. Not voidable-if-challenged. Not curable by a later ratification. Invalid.
[ ] Know the court's powers in a § 3953 proceeding: stay the sale, or adjust the obligation. § 3953(b).
[ ] Know the criminal exposure for knowing violations. § 3953(d).
[ ] Screen every nonjudicial foreclosure file through DMDC before the sale date, and again if the sale is postponed.

Why it matters, and the traps. This is the provision that has generated the largest SCRA settlements. Nonjudicial foreclosure states are the danger zone, precisely because the process is designed to run without a judge — and § 3953 says that for a covered servicemember, it may not. Worked example. Copperline Savings Bank forecloses on Voss's home under a state power-of-sale clause while she is deployed. No court ever sees the file. The sale is invalid under § 3953(c). Copperline now owns a defective title, a suit under 50 U.S.C. § 4042 exposing it to actual damages, equitable relief, and attorney's fees, a possible pattern-or-practice referral under § 4041, and the reputational catastrophe of having foreclosed on a deployed soldier. Every dollar of that could have been avoided by a DMDC query costing nothing.

Phase 18 — Waivers: narrow, written, and easily invalidated

[ ] Know that a waiver of SCRA rights under §§ 3951, 3952, and 3953 is effective only if it is in writing, executed as an instrument separate from the underlying obligation, and made during or after the servicemember's period of military service. 50 U.S.C. § 3918(a)-(b).
[ ] Know the formatting requirement: where the waiver concerns an obligation secured by a mortgage or a lease, it must be in at least 12-point type. § 3918(c).
[ ] Understand what this kills: a boilerplate waiver buried in the original loan documents, signed before service, is worthless.
[ ] Do not treat an arbitration clause in a pre-service consumer contract as a waiver of SCRA protections; and remember the Military Lending Act flatly prohibits mandatory arbitration in covered consumer credit. 10 U.S.C. § 987(e)(3).
[ ] Construe the SCRA liberally in favor of the servicemember. The Supreme Court has instructed as much since Le Maistre v. Leffers, 333 U.S. 1 (1948).

Why it matters, and the traps. Lenders reflexively reach for the contract. The SCRA anticipated that reflex and disarmed it. A separate-instrument, during-or-after-service, 12-point waiver is a document almost no consumer lender actually obtains — which means, in practice, that SCRA rights are rarely waived at all.

Common mistakes to avoid

Treating the pre-service job as the reemployment job. The escalator, not the old desk, is the benchmark. Fishgold said so in 1946.
Believing a replacement hire is a defense. It is not. USERRA expects backfills and requires you to unwind them.
Assuming a missed reporting deadline forfeits reemployment. Section 4312(e)(3) says it does not; it merely subjects the employee to your ordinary attendance rules.
Firing a returnee at will. For 180 days or a full year after reemployment, discharge requires cause, and the employer bears the burden. § 4316(c).
Purging military-leave files on a three-year retention schedule. USERRA has no statute of limitations and no laches. Retain forever.
Miscounting the five-year cap. Most contingency mobilizations are excluded from it. § 4312(c).
Filing a default-judgment affidavit without checking DMDC. This is the single most audited SCRA failure, and a knowingly false affidavit is a crime. § 3931(b)-(c).
Deferring rather than forgiving excess interest, or keeping the payment amount constant. Both violate § 3937.
Confusing the SCRA's 6% cap with the MLA's 36% MAPR cap. Different statutes, different triggers, both live.
Foreclosing nonjudicially on a covered servicemember. Invalid under § 3953(c), full stop.
Relying on a boilerplate waiver in the loan agreement. Section 3918 requires a separate instrument executed during or after service.
Forgetting dependents. Section 3959 extends key SCRA protections to them.
Missing the state overlay. State active duty ordered by a governor is generally outside USERRA; state statutes cover it, and many states go further than federal law.

The consolidated USERRA/SCRA checklist

Employer (USERRA)

[ ] Accept verbal or written advance notice; excuse it where military necessity intervenes.
[ ] Do not force use of PTO; permit it if elected.
[ ] Offer 24 months of health-plan continuation at the correct premium (employee share if ≤30 days; up to 102% otherwise).
[ ] Apply furlough/leave-of-absence parity to non-seniority benefits.
[ ] Compute the escalator position in writing, contemporaneously.
[ ] Apply the correct reemployment deadline: report next work period (≤30 days); apply in 14 days (31-180); apply in 90 days (>180); up to 2 years if convalescing.
[ ] Reemploy promptly — generally within two weeks.
[ ] Restore seniority, pay, and leave banks as though service never happened.
[ ] Open the pension make-up window (3× service, capped at 5 years) with the plan administrator.
[ ] Assert § 4312(d) defenses only with proof; you carry the burden.
[ ] Accommodate service-connected disability down the § 4313(a)(3) cascade.
[ ] Gate every discharge within 180 days / 1 year of reemployment through counsel.
[ ] Scrub biased inputs from decisions — Staub proximate cause.
[ ] Post the USERRA notice; retain military-leave files indefinitely.

Creditor / landlord / litigant (SCRA)

[ ] Run a DMDC check before any default-judgment motion; file a fact-supported affidavit.
[ ] Expect counsel appointment, a bond, and a 90-day stay if the defendant is serving.
[ ] Honor stay applications supported by the servicemember's and commanding officer's letters.
[ ] On written notice plus orders (within 180 days post-service), cap pre-service interest at 6%, forgive the excess, and reduce the payment.
[ ] Comply separately with the MLA (36% MAPR; no mandatory arbitration) on new consumer credit.
[ ] Honor lease terminations on PCS/deployment orders; refund prepaid rent and the deposit; charge no penalty.
[ ] Take no eviction, no repossession, no storage-lien enforcement without a court order.
[ ] Take no foreclosure during service or the post-service window without a court order or a § 3918-compliant waiver — and verify the current window length.
[ ] Treat pre-service boilerplate waivers as worthless.
[ ] Screen postponed foreclosure sales again before the new date.

Primary Authority

USERRA

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, 38 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4335 — especially § 4302(b) (statute is a floor; supersedes contrary contracts), § 4303(13) (definition of service), § 4311 (discrimination, retaliation, motivating-factor standard), § 4312 (notice, five-year limit, application deadlines, employer defenses), § 4313 (escalator and reemployment positions), § 4316 (seniority, furlough parity, discharge only for cause), § 4317 (health-plan continuation), § 4318 (pension restoration and make-up contributions), §§ 4322-4324 (enforcement), § 4323(d), (h) (liquidated damages, fees, no court costs), § 4327(b) (no statute of limitations), § 4334 (notice posting).
20 C.F.R. Part 1002 (Department of Labor USERRA regulations) — including § 1002.181 (prompt reemployment), §§ 1002.191-1002.194 (escalator), § 1002.248 (discharge for cause), § 1002.311 (no laches).
Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275 (1946) (escalator principle).
Alabama Power Co. v. Davis, 431 U.S. 581 (1977) (pension credit as a perquisite of seniority).
Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 562 U.S. 411 (2011) (cat's-paw liability under USERRA § 4311).

SCRA

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 3901-4043 — especially § 3918 (waivers), § 3931 (default judgments and the military-status affidavit), § 3932 (stays), § 3936 (tolling of limitations periods), § 3937 (6% interest cap on pre-service obligations), § 3951 (evictions; court order required), § 3952 (installment contracts and repossession), § 3953 (mortgages, trust deeds, and foreclosure), § 3955 (termination of residential and motor-vehicle leases), § 3958 (storage liens), § 3959 (extension to dependents), § 4041 (Attorney General enforcement), § 4042 (private right of action).
Boone v. Lightner, 319 U.S. 561 (1943) (stays are discretionary; the Act is not a shield for abuse).
Le Maistre v. Leffers, 333 U.S. 1 (1948) (the Act is to be liberally construed for those in service).
Conroy v. Aniskoff, 507 U.S. 511 (1993) (tolling applies by its plain terms without a prejudice showing).

Adjacent

Military Lending Act, 10 U.S.C. § 987; 32 C.F.R. Part 232 (36% MAPR cap; prohibition on mandatory arbitration in covered consumer credit).
Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act, 38 U.S.C. § 4212 (federal-contractor veteran hiring and affirmative-action obligations).

A note on figures, and a verification warning: the SCRA's eviction rent ceiling is adjusted annually for inflation, and the post-service foreclosure window has been amended repeatedly by Congress. Both are moving numbers. Verify the current figure — and the current text of the MLA regulations at 32 C.F.R. Part 232, which have themselves been amended and reinterpreted — before you rely on any of them. USERRA and the SCRA are federal statutes that apply nationwide, but state law supplements both: state active duty ordered by a governor is generally outside USERRA's definition of covered service, and many states extend reemployment, interest-rate, lease, and eviction protections further than the federal floor. Confirm your own state's overlay; nothing in this checklist states a rule of state law.

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This checklist is general legal information from UpLaw (uplaw.us), not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws vary by state and change over time; verify current requirements and consult qualified counsel before acting.