California Code of Civil Procedure Section 473: Relief, Deadlines, Motions

California Code of Civil Procedure Section 473 lets you ask a court to undo a judgment, dismissal, or order that resulted from a mistake, an oversight, a surprise, or excusable neglect, and it also gives courts the power to fix defective pleadings and set aside judgments that were void from the start. The outer deadline for most relief is six months from entry, and in many situations the court will expect you to move much sooner than that.

What Section 473 Covers

Section 473 is not a single remedy. It has three working parts, and the right one depends on what went wrong.¹

Subsection (a) lets the court allow amendments to pleadings and extend time to respond.
Subsection (b) is the main relief provision, used to set aside a judgment, dismissal, or order caused by mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. It has a discretionary track and a mandatory track for attorney fault.
Subsection (d) covers void judgments and clerical corrections, and it is not bound by the six-month limit.

Choose the subsection first, because the standard, the deadline, and the paperwork change with it.

Discretionary Relief Under Section 473(b)

The discretionary portion of 473(b) is the broad escape hatch. The court may set aside a judgment, dismissal, or order if you show that it was entered because of your mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect, and that you acted promptly once you discovered the problem.¹

Each of those four grounds targets a different problem. Mistake covers a factual or legal error, such as presenting incorrect information or applying the wrong legal standard. Inadvertence covers unintentional oversights like a missed calendar entry. Surprise means an unexpected turn in the case that you could not reasonably have anticipated. Excusable neglect covers a failure to act that was still reasonable given the circumstances, like an attorney’s serious illness preventing a timely filing.

Because this track is discretionary, the judge weighs the facts. Relevant considerations include how serious the error was, whether you have a meritorious defense or claim underneath, and whether the other side would be unfairly harmed by reopening the case. A party who waited months to file faces a harder path than one who moved within weeks of finding the mistake. Discretionary relief reaches any judgment, dismissal, or order, and it covers your own errors, not just your lawyer’s. The tradeoff is that you can satisfy every element on paper and still be denied.

Mandatory Relief When Your Attorney Caused a Default

The mandatory track inside 473(b) is narrower and much stronger. When a default, default judgment, or dismissal results from your attorney’s mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or neglect, the court must vacate it if the attorney files a sworn affidavit taking responsibility for the error.¹ Once the statutory conditions are met, the judge has no authority to deny the motion.

The requirements are specific. The motion must include the attorney’s affidavit of fault. It must attach a copy of the answer or other pleading you propose to file. And it must be filed within six months. The attorney’s neglect does not have to be “excusable” on this track, which is a meaningful difference from the discretionary standard.

Two limits matter. First, mandatory relief only reaches defaults, default judgments, and dismissals. If you lost on summary judgment or at trial, this provision does not help, and you would need to pursue discretionary relief or an appeal. Second, there is a cost for the lawyer: the court can order the attorney who caused the problem to pay the opposing party’s reasonable legal fees and costs resulting from the error.¹ That falls on counsel, not on you, but it is worth discussing with your lawyer before the affidavit is filed.

What Counts as Excusable Neglect

Of the four grounds, excusable neglect generates the most argument because “excusable” is inherently subjective. California courts apply a practical standard: whether a reasonably prudent person in the same circumstances would have made the same error.²

Judges typically weigh:

The reason for the delay. A medical emergency or natural disaster is more forgivable than forgetting a deadline.
Prejudice to the other side. Serious harm from reopening the case cuts against relief.
The length of the delay. Two weeks after discovery reads very differently from four months.
Good faith. The court looks at whether you acted honestly, not strategically.

Indifference to deadlines is not excusable. A party who chose not to prioritize the case, or who ignored warnings about filing requirements, will not find relief on this ground. Again, this calculation only applies to the discretionary track. Under the mandatory provision, the attorney’s neglect does not have to be excusable at all, as long as the required affidavit is filed.

Void Judgments Under Section 473(d)

Subsection (d) handles a different problem. A void judgment is one the court had no legal authority to enter in the first place, usually because it lacked jurisdiction over the parties or the subject matter. A void judgment has no legal effect from the moment it was issued, which is different from a voidable judgment that remains valid until successfully challenged.

Under 473(d), the court can set aside a void judgment or order on a party’s motion or on its own initiative, and it can correct clerical mistakes in judgments or orders so they match what the court actually directed.¹ Importantly, 473(d) does not carry the six-month limit that governs 473(b). Courts generally allow challenges beyond six months because a void judgment never had force, though they still expect you to act within a reasonable time. If you believe a judgment against you was entered without proper jurisdiction, this is the subsection to use regardless of how long ago it was entered.

Fixing Pleadings Under Section 473(a)

Section 473(a)(1) gives the court broad discretion to let parties fix mistakes in their pleadings or proceedings. That includes correcting a wrong party name, adding or removing parties, and amending other errors, and the court can also extend the time to file an answer or other responsive pleading.¹

This track operates separately from the relief provisions in 473(b). You do not have to show mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. The standard is whether the amendment serves the interests of justice, and the court can impose conditions, such as requiring you to cover the opposing party’s costs if the amendment forces a trial postponement.

The Six-Month Deadline and Acting Promptly

For both discretionary and mandatory relief under 473(b), your motion must be filed within a reasonable time, and in no case more than six months after the judgment, dismissal, order, or proceeding was entered.¹ The six-month limit is absolute. Courts have no authority to extend it, no matter how compelling the circumstances.

Six months is the outer boundary, not the target. Even within that window, the court evaluates whether you acted within a reasonable time given your situation. If you discovered the mistake in week two and waited until month five, a judge may deny discretionary relief on delay alone. For mandatory relief, the reasonable-time requirement is less of a hurdle because the court is obligated to grant the motion when the statutory conditions are met, but filing promptly still avoids unnecessary complications.

For property-related judgments affecting ownership or possession, the statute includes an additional notice provision. Written notice personally served within California can trigger a shorter window, so if your case involves real or personal property, read any notice you receive about the judgment carefully.

How to File a Section 473 Motion

Your motion must clearly identify which type of relief you are seeking, the specific ground, and the facts supporting your claim. Include a sworn declaration laying out what happened, why the error occurred, and when you discovered it. For mandatory relief, your attorney files a separate affidavit admitting fault.

Every motion under 473(b) must be accompanied by a copy of the answer, motion to dismiss, or other pleading you intend to file if relief is granted.¹ This is not optional. The statute says the application “shall not be granted” without one, and courts routinely deny motions that arrive without a proposed responsive pleading attached.

Once prepared, file the motion and serve it on all parties. California law requires motion papers to be served at least 16 court days before the hearing, with additional time added for service by mail or electronic means.³ The filing fee for a noticed motion in California Superior Court is $60 as of January 1, 2026.⁴

At the hearing, the judge evaluates whether you have met the statutory requirements. For mandatory relief, the questions are fairly mechanical: is there a proper attorney affidavit, is the motion timely, and is a proposed pleading attached? For discretionary relief, expect the judge to probe the reasonableness of your error and your diligence in seeking correction.

After the Court Rules

If the court grants your motion, the judgment, dismissal, or order is vacated and the case rewinds to the point before the error. For a vacated default judgment, you file the answer or responsive pleading that was attached to your motion, and the case moves forward: discovery, motion practice, and potentially trial.

If attorney fault drove mandatory relief, the court may at the same time order your attorney to pay the opposing party’s reasonable fees and costs caused by the error. That payment comes from counsel, not from you.

The opposing party can appeal a ruling that grants a 473 motion, and if the court denies yours, your options narrow quickly. Appellate deadlines are strict, so a prompt conversation with a lawyer after a denial matters.

If Your Case Is in Federal Court

Section 473 is a California state-court statute. If your judgment is in federal court, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) is the parallel rule, and it was historically modeled on 473.⁵ The grounds overlap, but two differences stand out.

First, Rule 60(b) gives you up to one year for motions based on mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, or fraud by an opposing party. Other grounds, such as a void judgment, require only a “reasonable time” with no fixed outer limit.⁵ That is twice California’s six-month window.

Second, federal courts have no mandatory relief provision. All relief under Rule 60(b) is discretionary; the court “may” grant it but is never required to.⁵ An attorney’s affidavit of fault does not compel the court’s hand the way it does in California state court. Federal Rule 60(d) also preserves the court’s power to entertain an independent action to relieve a party from a judgment or to address fraud on the court, with no one-year limit.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473
2
Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute. Excusable Neglect
3
California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 1005
4
Judicial Council of California. Superior Court of California Statewide Civil Fee Schedule
5
Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute. Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order