Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

If you never knew about the judgment because you were never served with the lawsuit, you can file a motion to have the judgment set aside as void. Since both the attorney of record and the plaintiff are no longer extant, your attorney should be able to have the motion granted. Maybe you can get the mortgage company to agree to have the disputed amount held in escrow until you can resolve this.

With difficulty. Motions to set aside judgments have statutory time limits that are going to affect this. If serious about getting counsel to help in this, feel free to contact me.

While the law firm that represented the plaintiff may not be in business, the individual attorney(s) who handled the case are probably still around (unless they are dead). You can locate them on the California State Bar's website.

As for the plaintiff itself, it is likely that some person or entity has acquired the assets of the former company; an attorney can do that research for you. It is also possible that the plaintiff has winded up all business and can no longer enforce the judgment.

As for setting aside the judgment, you don't state how old the judgment is. There are different time limitations that may apply in getting rid of the judgment (e.g., six months for a default judgment; no time limit for a judgment procured by fraud; 10 years for a valid judgment, etc.) Again, an attorney can further advise you of your rights under the circumstances.

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