AB 2347 Just Doubled a Hawthorne Tenant's Eviction Response Window. Here Is What Changed.

Published July 25, 2026

AB 2347 doubled a Hawthorne tenant's window to answer an unlawful detainer from 5 court days to 10. It does not stop an eviction, but it lengthens the court timeline.

AB 2347 took effect on January 1, 2025, and it doubled the time a Hawthorne tenant has to answer an unlawful detainer, the formal eviction lawsuit, from 5 court days to 10 court days. The change does not stop an eviction and it did not touch your notice period. What it did was stretch the front of the court timeline, so plan for a longer wait before you can reach a judgment.

What AB 2347 actually changed

AB 2347, authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, amended California's Code of Civil Procedure and took effect on January 1, 2025. The headline is simple. A tenant served with an unlawful detainer, which is the only legal way to remove someone in California, used to have 5 court days to file a response. Now they have 10 court days.

The word court matters more than the number. Court days are weekdays, and they exclude weekends and court holidays. So 10 court days on a wall calendar can land two full weeks out, and longer when a holiday falls inside the window. Under the old rule, a tenant served on a Monday might have had to answer within that same week. Under the new rule, that same tenant now has until the middle of the following week or later.

Two smaller mechanical changes ride along with the longer answer window. First, before you can ask the court for a default judgment, meaning a win because the tenant never responded at all, you must file your proof of service and then wait at least 3 court days. Second, if the tenant answers by filing a demurrer or a motion to strike rather than a plain answer, the court now sets that hearing between 5 and 7 court days out. Each of those steps adds a handful of days to the earliest possible finish.

The notice period still runs the same

This is the part owners most often get wrong when they hear the news. AB 2347 only touched the lawsuit stage. It did nothing to the notice stage that comes first. If a Hawthorne tenant has stopped paying, you still serve a three day notice to pay rent or quit, and you still let that notice run before you file anything in court. The three days there are counted the old way. Only after the notice expires and the tenant has neither paid nor left do you file the unlawful detainer, and that is the moment the new 10 court day clock starts.

So the law did not add time to the whole process at the notice level. It added time at the court level, after you have already filed. If you have read one of our earlier eviction timeline pieces written before 2025, the notice math still holds. The court math no longer does.

What this means for your building

For a Hawthorne owner, the practical effect is patience and paperwork, not lost rights. None of your grounds changed. You can still evict for nonpayment, for a lease violation, and on the other legal grounds California allows. What changed is the clock. Every uncontested eviction now carries extra court days at the front, and a contested one carries more still. If a unit has stopped producing rent, the gap between the last payment and a possible judgment is longer than it was in 2024, which means the carrying cost of a nonpaying tenant is higher. Budget for that gap rather than being surprised by it.

Two habits protect you under the new timeline. First, serve cleanly and file your proof of service promptly, because that 3 court day default step does not even begin until the proof is on record. Every day you sit on the paperwork is a day added to the end. Second, keep your three day notice airtight. AB 2347 gives a tenant more room to read the complaint, spot a defect, and answer with a demurrer, and the demurrer is the filing that triggers the 5 to 7 court day hearing and pushes your date out further. A sloppy notice was always a risk. Under the longer window it simply costs more.

One more Hawthorne reality. Evictions on Hawthorne properties are filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, whose unlawful detainer calendar was already crowded before this law added days on top. Treat any rough estimate you carry in your head from a few years back as optimistic. We do not put a fixed total day count on an eviction here, and neither should anyone advising you, because the real number swings on how fast you serve, on whether the tenant contests, and on how backed up the court is that month. Anyone who promises you an exact number of days is guessing.

The honest summary is this. AB 2347 did not weaken your position. It slowed the front end and rewarded owners who keep their notices and their service clean. That is exactly the kind of thing we watch so an owner is never caught flat footed on a timeline.

Common questions

Does AB 2347 apply if my Hawthorne tenant broke the lease rather than skipped rent?

Yes. The longer response window applies to unlawful detainer cases generally, not only nonpayment. Whatever the ground, a served tenant now gets 10 court days to answer. Confirm your specific notice and grounds with an eviction attorney before you file.

Can I still win quickly if the tenant simply ignores the lawsuit?

Often yes, but not as fast as before. You still pursue a default judgment when a tenant never answers, but you cannot request it until the 10 court day window has fully run and you have filed proof of service and then waited at least 3 court days.

Did AB 2347 change my three day notice?

No. The notice stage is untouched. AB 2347 only lengthened the response window inside the court lawsuit that follows an expired notice, so your notice practice stays exactly as it was.

Last verified: July 25, 2026. AB 2347 took effect January 1, 2025 and governs unlawful detainer filings through 2026. This is general information for property owners, not legal advice. Confirm your notice, your filing, and your timeline with a licensed professional before you act.

Kellie

Schofield Properties

323 Richmond Street, El Segundo, CA 90245

Topics: market, hawthorne, south-bay, eviction, ab-2347

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