Deceased Dad’s Car Got Repo’d, Struggling To Get His Personal Stuff Back.

Location: California

My dad had passed away suddenly earlier this year in April, and was divorced from my mother. He lived a couple states away with my aunt, and we had brought his car recently and his personal belongings over to my mother’s home in California as he had no estate of his own. We unfortunately didn’t know that he was paying this car off, and it got repo’d in the middle of the night 3 weeks ago.

My mother unfortunately didn’t have enough space in her garage for all of his belongings, so a good amount of things were still in his car. Lots of old memories, a lot of vintage devices that we remember from our childhood, and keepsakes.

My oldest sister is authorized to pick up his belongings, and it’s been a difficult and complicated process.

We ended up having a fight over this, because she doesn’t care about his belongings at all, doesn’t want to deal with it, and had said some incredibly hurtful things to the rest of the family that can’t ever be taken back. She’s also purposely omitting info about the proper documentation and forms for his life insurance and federal pension. To be quite honest, I don’t want to fight over money. I just miss my dad and want his things back.

My middle sister and I however care a ton about his old items and the memories behind them, but we don’t have authorization from the financial company or the repo company. My sister is purposely omitting info she has gotten from them on where his personal belongings are out of spite.

I’m assuming we’re out of luck right? I doubt there’s anything we can do to get his stuff because we’re not authorized on his account. I thought I’d reach out here just in case, just as a last hope on what else we can do.