My question involves court procedures for the state of: California

My husband had a large civil judgment against him while we were married and he did nothing, including telling me. A default judgment was entered in January of 1999. Now we are trying to re-finance the house and I found out about the liens on the property resulting from this judgment.

It has been over 10 years and the judgment has not been renewed, how does one go about getting the liens removed and is there a risk that the judgment can be renewed even though it has been more then 10 years. It appears the original law firm for the plaintiff no longer exists but some of the partners are still around.

I talked with a local lawyer and he told me he had never heard of a judgment of this size (~$400K) that was not renewed and didn't really know what the next step would be.

Thanks,
Jen