Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

Default in payment starts the day it is due and not paid, UNLESS it is an open account, such as a credit card. In that case it runs from the day the payment is due and not paid, OR the last charge or payment on the account initiated by the debtor, whichever is later. So if it is an installment sale, such as a refrigerator on credit, where there is only one charge at the beginning and payments due after that, it runs from the date the first missed payment is due. If it is a revolving account, like a credit card, however, where there may be additional charges allowed after the missed payment before the card gets frozen, then it runs from the last charge.

More importantly than all that, though, is you have a judgment against you, regardless of whether you could have successfully asserted a statute of limitations defense had you appeared and filed an answer asserting that defense. Unless you get into court IMMEDIATELY with a motion to set aside the default and default judgment, with proof that you never were served with the complaint in the action and had no knowledge of the case until now, this judgment is going to be unassailable and you will have to pay it. You are in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and an 0-2 count against you. Call a lawyer NOW, or resign yourself to paying this judgment.