Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Maryland

Re: Retrieve personnal property

I wasn't clear whether he wants to sell them to you for $5k or to an outsider. I don't understand why he should have possession, since you (or your spouse) should equally share property of the grandparents, unless there's a will. It's a sticky issue. Perhaps you can find someone to mediate the dispute rather than file a lawsuit, because the further enmeshed legally you become, the more intransigent your (or your spouse's) sibling will become. Good luck to you!

Re: Retrieve personnal property

Did your son intend to give the albums to his grandparents or merely lend them? If he was lending them then they remain his property and he can sue for their return. Small claims court may be the appropriate venue for such a case, though that would depend on some facts which you have not provided.

Assuming he intended the albums to be a gift to his granparents, he lost all ownership claims when he made that gift. Any claim he might have now would have to arise from his status as an heir.

The grandparents' wills might have specified who was to inherit the albums. Even if the wills aren't specific, they might contain enough information to figure out precisely who has what claim to the albums. If they had no wills, then the intestacy laws set forth how to distribute the property. Depending upon who was alive when the grandparents passed away, he may or may not have regained some claim. The order of their deaths is also important, and the situation may be even murkier if one of their heirs died after the first grandparent but before the second.

Of course, this assumes that the grandparents still owned the albums when they died. If they gave or sold the albums to their son while they were still alive, then the albums are his to do with as he pleases, and you will have to negotiate a purchase price.

Your question asks what recourse *you* have, and you may very well have none even if your son does (assuming that the grandparents who died were not your parents). Even if your son has a claim to the albums, if he doesn't want to sue over them there may well be no recourse available to you except to reach some sort of agreement with the man who now has them.