Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

No, serve was not proper. If you are going to be in the business of being a landlord, you need to read books on the subject. Nolo Press has some good ones.

You, even though a party to the action, can serve the three day notice, but you must first try to make about three attempts at different times. You can then make substituted service by giving a responsible adult [over age of 18] the three day notice and then send via certified mail. You better re-serve the tenant and all adults who live there or else the judge may toss out the unlawful detainer for failure to make proper service. Remember that a party to the action can not serve the summons and complaint.

Call up the civil clerk for the county and local branch nearest to the location of the house and find out how long it takes .

In addition to the good suggestions by my colleague, if no one of competent age (over 18) is at home when you try to serve the three-day notice, you can post it in a conspicuous place (usually the front door), and mail a copy to the tenant. It would be worth your while to have a process server serve the actual unlawful detainer lawsuit on both the tenant and all unknown adult occupants, so that you have an independent third party who is licensed and who could testify as to its proper service. Good luck!

Once the lawsuit is filed and served, the tenant has five days to answer. If there is no answer, you can immediately apply for entry of default and judgment. If there is an answer, it could drag out a few weeks. You would file with the court a request for trial setting, and a trial should be set within a week or so thereafter. Once you have a trial and, presumably, a judgment, then you would schedule a lockout with the sheriff in your county. That might take a week or two, depending on how much work the sheriff has. However, the tenant might apply to the court for a little more time, and that could delay things.