How to document your personal property for a PCS like it’s evidence

Pack-out day, 2026. A crew you did not hire shows up in a truck from a company you have never heard of. They wrap your grandmother’s dining table in one layer of brown paper, scribble “SC” (scratched) on an inventory sheet you can barely read, and ask you to sign.

Three weeks later, at the new house, the table arrives with a leg snapped off, and the scratch code they wrote that morning is now the reason your claim is being negotiated instead of paid out. You do not remember exactly what the table looked like that morning. You remember dinners, not wood grain.

That’s the gap between getting paid fairly and getting paid at all. And in the summer of 2026, that gap is wider than it has been in years.

Standing Up the PPA

On Jan. 23, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an order establishing a new Pentagon command, the Personal Property Activity, which officially stands up on May 1 at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

It will oversee the household goods moves of roughly 300,000 service members and civilians every year. Its commander, Army Maj. Gen. Lance Curtis told Military.com that the software tracking those shipments, the Defense Personal Property System, is more than 25 years old and “nearing technical failure.”

That is the system your stuff is moving through this peak season.

Let’s back up to 2025 for context. After a brutal moving season, Hegseth fired the director of the personal property program, terminated a $6.2 billion privatization contract with HomeSafe Alliance, and stood up a task force. The PPA is what that task force became.

“When our warfighters are worried about their household goods, they aren’t focused on their mission,” Curtis said at the January announcement. “Mission readiness is non-negotiable.”

Good. Hold them to it. But the fine print of how claims will be handled under the new agency is still being written as trucks are being loaded, which means your claim this summer will be adjudicated under rules that may literally not exist on pack-out day.

In that environment, the only piece of documentation you fully control is the one in your pocket.

Whether the PPA succeeds or flames out, the structure of a household goods claim has not changed in decades. The burden of proving what your stuff looked like before the movers touched it is on you. The moving company, or Transportation Service Provider in Pentagon-speak, owes you full replacement value on items damaged or lost in transit.

“Damaged in transit” is the operative phrase. If they can argue the scratch was already there, the claim shrinks. If they can argue that the item cannot be identified, the claim disappears.

Megan Harless, an Army veteran and longtime military spouse advocate, told MOAA in May 2025 what spouses had been asking for: “accountability and transparency.” Accountability cuts both ways. The spouse coordinating pack-out while the service member in-processes is the one providing it.

Think Like the PPA

Keep in mind that you are not making a home movie or a viral TikTok sensation. You are trying to build a record for a stranger whose job is to decide whether your claim is considered reasonable.

Our stranger will want three things: a clear idea of what each item looked like before the move, proof the item even existed and belonged to you, and enough detail to distinguish “damaged in transit” from “already jacked up.”

Every second of footage should answer one of those three.

A photo of a wrapped sofa is useless; a photo of the sofa’s joints, cushions, and existing wear before the wrap goes on is gold. A generic shot of “the TV” proves nothing; a shot of the TV powered on with a clear image, panning to the serial number on the back in one unbroken clip, proves both that it worked and which unit you owned.

Alternatively, you could allow a mover to scribble “SC” on your dresser with zero context, handing the company a ready-made excuse for any new damage that shows up at delivery.

“Sweep the Room, Johnny”

The easiest way is to start at the doorway of each room. Slow pan at a slow, steady speed. Fast camera movement creates blur, and blur is a gift to anyone looking to call your evidence inconclusive.

Then narrate item by item, out loud. “Living room, dining table, solid oak, no scratches on the top surface. April 18.” It feels ridiculous for 40 seconds, but it gets more professional with every passing second. Say the room, the item, the condition, and the date. Brand and serial number would be helpful as well, if you have them.

There’s no need to chase perfection; completeness is the key. Every room. Inside drawers. Behind electronics. On top of the fridge, which the movers will pack and you will forget about.

Consider shooting this all in 4K. Again, not for cinematic quality, because six months from now, when a claims specialist is squinting at a still from your footage, the resolution is what lets you zoom in and settle the argument for good.

Here is where you can let your cinetamatic flag fly. Lighting actually matters here more than your fancy megapixels. Open every blind, and film mid-day if possible.

One technical note most guides miss: do not screenshot your footage, do not compress it, and do not send it to yourself through a messaging app.

You can also upload originals directly to iCloud, Google Photos, or Dropbox, which preserves the date, time, and even GPS embedded in the file.

Pack-Out, Signature, Delivery

Film a clip of the crew wrapping your high-value items. Ten seconds of the inside of the truck before loading, which is what saves you if your shipment sits in a warehouse and mold shows up at delivery.

Then the signature. The crew chief will hand you an inventory sheet. Read it carefully. If you see anything you disagree with, write your disagreement in the remarks section before you sign. Their sheet is their evidence; the remarks section is yours.

At delivery, before you start unpacking, or the dog is losing its mind, walk through the new house with your phone and your pack-out footage open side by side. If a box arrives crushed, film it before you open it. If furniture arrives damaged, just film it before you move it.

You’ll have 180 days from delivery to notify the TSP of loss or damage. You have nine months to file the itemized claim itself, a window the PPA has reportedly expanded to 12 months this spring, per PPA spokesman Army Maj. Matthew Visser. That sounds like a lot of time. It is not. File early.

On May 1, an agency stands up that is supposed to make all of this easier. Maybe it will. The expanded claims window is a real improvement. The 24/7 call center the task force launched last August has, per Visser, fielded roughly 16,000 contacts to date, which suggests someone is finally answering the phone.

However, reform often takes years; this shipment leaves the driveway in mere weeks. Whatever happens at Scott Air Force Base on May 1, the phone in your pocket is still the most valuable piece of equipment that you fully control.

The families who get paid fairly this summer will be the ones who walked into pack-out day with an hour of footage already on their phones. The ones who did not will be the ones writing appeals.

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