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In an unlawful detainer action the summons follows section 412.20, except that the defendant's response is due within 10 days — excluding Saturdays, Sundays and other judicial holidays — after the complaint is served, with five additional court days when service is completed by mail or in person through the Secretary of State's address confidentiality program; the summons is otherwise issued, served and returned as in a civil action.
California > Superior courts (unlawful detainer)
(a) The summons shall be in the form specified in Section 412.20 except that when the defendant is served, the defendant’s response shall be filed within 10 days, excluding Saturdays and Sundays and other judicial holidays, after the complaint is served upon the defendant. (b) If service is completed by mail or in person through the Secretary of State’s address confidentiality program under Chapter 3.1 (commencing with Section 6205) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code, the defendant shall have an additional five court days to file a response. (c) Except as otherwise provided in this section, the summons shall be issued and served and returned in the same manner as a summons in a civil action.
10 court days after
Unlawful detainer response: within 10 days after service, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays
Trigger: Unlawful detainer complaint served
Code Civ. Proc., § 1167(a)
5 court days after
Unlawful detainer served by mail or through the address confidentiality program: 5 more court days
Trigger: Unlawful detainer complaint served
Runs from the computed due date of “Unlawful detainer response: within 10 days after service, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays”, not from the trigger above.
Code Civ. Proc., § 1167(b)
Computed periods follow Code Civ. Proc. §§ 12–12c — a period in court days skips weekends and judicial holidays, a period before a hearing counts backward from it (§ 12c), and a day a court is closed counts as a holiday (§ 12b); always confirm holiday calendars for the specific court.
Reviewer note: The current text carries Stats. 2024, ch. 512 (AB 2347), effective January 1, 2025: the defendant's response is due within 10 days excluding Saturdays, Sundays and other judicial holidays (formerly five days), plus five court days where service is completed through the Secretary of State's address confidentiality program. Held dark at the California go-live (owner ruling 2026-10-13, gate item A.13): this card rests on a section page read on 2026-09-28 from leginfo.legislature.ca.gov, whose robots.txt disallows every agent ("User-agent: * / Disallow: /", read 2026-10-03; a Cloudflare challenge page on 2026-10-14). It is re-published only after its text is re-verified, verbatim, from a channel robots.txt permits. Re-sourced 2026-10-22 (California parity Phase 4; the owner's ruling of 2026-10-13 on gate item A.13: re-publish once re-verified, verbatim, from a channel robots.txt permits): every paragraph of this card's text appears verbatim in Code Civ. Proc., § 1167 as the Legislative Counsel publishes it in the official weekly code archive (downloads.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/pubinfo_2025.zip, extract of 2026-10-18; LAW_SECTION_TBL row CCP1167.20245121, version id_0a8a1c50-ab63-11ef-a65c-39cfff99ef2f; the host serves no robots.txt). The link stays the section's page on the official site, which robots.txt closes to automated reads; the archive is the verification receipt.
1 verbatim requirement on continuances in JEREMY I. FRANKER's division.
1 verbatim requirement on continuances.
Judge Weiss: case law and memos to chambers five business days before the hearing, and every exhibit a party intends to use listed on a notice of discovery and provided to the other side five business days out.