The papers look official, and when you flip through them, the words “Summons and Complaint” stare back at you. A company you may have never heard of is suing you over an old debt, and the clock is already running.

In California, you generally have 30 days after being served with the complaint to file a written response with the court, and doing nothing is the costliest choice you can make. A California debt collection defense attorney can review the case, respond on your behalf, and hold the collector to its burden of proof.

What the Summons and Complaint Actually Are

Two documents start a debt lawsuit, and each does something different:

• The complaint is the collector’s written story: who they are, how much they claim you owe, and the legal theory behind the debt.
• The summons is the court’s official notice that the case exists.

In California, the summons tells you to respond within 30 days and warns that if you don’t, the plaintiff can get a default judgment, which can then be used to garnish your wages or take money or property.

Read both documents closely and write down the date you were served, because that date starts your deadline.

Timeline of Events When Being Sued by a Debt Collector

How Long You Have to Respond, and Why Service Type Matters

How you were served changes the math:

• Personal service. You generally have 30 days from the day you are personally handed the papers to file your response.
• Substituted service. If the papers were instead left with someone else at your home or work and then mailed to you, California treats service as complete on the 10th day after the mailing. In practice, that gives you closer to 40 days rather than 30.

The safest approach is to treat the clock as already running from the day you first received the papers, rather than trying to calculate the exact deadline yourself. Missing it is what opens the door to a default judgment.

What Happens After a Default Judgment Is Entered

If you do not respond in time, the collector can ask the court to enter your default, but only after your time to respond runs out. Then, the creditor can ask the court to enter a default judgment for the amount claimed, without you ever telling your side.

A money judgment is powerful. With one in hand, a creditor can:

• garnish your paycheck,
• levy your bank account, and
• record a lien against real property you own that can cloud a later home sale or refinance.

The balance also grows over time. A California money judgment accrues interest at 10 percent per year, though for judgments entered on or after January 1, 2023, the rate is 5 percent per year on personal debt judgments under $50,000. You can read what a default judgment sets in motion on the state courts’ self-help site.

How to Respond: Filing an Answer

The written response is called an Answer. Filing it forces the collector to prove its case instead of winning automatically, and it preserves defenses you might not know you have. California’s court system lets you respond to the lawsuit in writing on your own, and there is a filing fee you can ask to waive if you cannot afford it.

The risk of going it alone is that a single misstep, such as leaving a defense out of your Answer, can make it much harder to raise later. An attorney can:

• prepare and file the Answer,
• raise every defense that fits your facts, and
• keep the case on track.

If the numbers make it the better path, you can also explore settling the debt instead of litigating.

The Collector Has to Prove the Debt Is Really Yours

Many collection lawsuits are filed by companies that bought your old account for pennies on the dollar, and those b

uyers do not always have the paperwork to back up their claims. To win, the collector must show:

• that the debt is yours,
• that it owns the debt, and
• that the amount is correct.

Timing matters too. Most California debts based on a written contract or credit card must be sued on within four years. If your debt is older than that, it may be “time-barred,” which is a complete defense. But it only works if you raise it in your written response. A collector can still sue on an old debt, and if you ignore the lawsuit, you can lose by default anyway.

What If a Default Judgment Was Already Entered?

A default judgment is not always the end. If you were never properly served, or you missed the deadline for a genuinely understandable reason, California law lets you ask the court to set the judgment aside within specific deadlines.

Setting a judgment aside does not erase the debt or mean you win. It reopens the case so you can file an Answer and defend yourself. Because the deadlines are strict and depend on how and when you learned of the case, it is worth acting the moment you discover a judgment against you.

Talk to a California Debt Collection Defense Attorney

If you have been served, the sooner you act, the more options you can protect. The Fullman Firm defends consumers throughout California against collection lawsuits, default judgments, and the garnishments and levies that follow them. Contact The Fullman Firm for a free, no-obligation consultation.