Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

A motion to vacate a judgment based on your mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect must be made within six (6) months. This must be made within six (6) months of the clerk's entry of your default, NOT the entry of the actual judgment. So you are late on this ground.

If you had an attorney, and it was his fault that you did not timely answer, the six (6) month period would run from the date of the entry of judgment. You did not have an attorney, and even if you did, it would be too late for this ground.

If you didn't get served at all, you could file a motion to set aside by showing lack of notice of the proceedings. Such a motion is filed within 2 years of the default judgment or 180 days after service of a written notice that the default judgment was entered, whichever is earlier. (Code of Civ. Proc, sec. 473.5 subd. (a).) This doesn't apply to you, because you were obviously served via substituted service, and received a copy in the mail. You just ignored it, which was a really bad idea.

Your neighbor, who I shall refer to as the "sea lawyer" is mixed up on his legal advice. When the sea lawyer referred to filing in the wrong court, based on the county where you live, he was referring to venue. You could have challenged venue, but you defaulted. A motion to change venue on the grounds that the venue selected by the plaintiff was the wrong venue must be made before or at the time of answering. (Code of Civ. Proc., sec. 396b.) Filing in the wrong courthouse is not grounds to set aside a default in a case that you received summons in the mail.