Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Calling the judge's clerk will provide the court with information, which might be better than furnishing no information as to why no defense is being made, but generally speaking a court has limited to no power to grant extensions on the request of a relative. Official communications upon which the court must act ordinarily must be made by the party himself or the party's attorney of record, with service on all other parties. See my further answer under a second posing of your question. My advice is to get an attorney to represent him. The attorney will at some point have to communicate directly with the defendant to confirm the representation and fee arrangements and get the information needed to respond to the interrogatories. Do not ignore the situation or try to rely upon your communications with the court or your father's alleged unreachability. Such dependence could cause him to lose the case completely.

It was a significant mistake of your father to leave the country with a law suit pending and not hire an attorney. I strongly recommend that you and he use whatever communications are available to you to hire him an attorney. Most courts will have little or no patience with a person who chooses not to be represented by counsel and then leaves the country without making arrangements for an attorney to at least monitor the case while they are gone.