Withheld property

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nonmuse

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This is a fairly long story so please bear with me.

My boyfriend and his mother were living together in the same state, but a different county than me for several years following her request for him to move back in. During his time living away from home he acquired a fairly large amount of items, many of them having a lot of sentimental value. About a year ago she decided that she wanted to move somewhere outside of Florida so they packed up the vast majority of their stuff and put it in a storage room in the county they were living in and took a small fraction of it with them to live on until they settled. After 3 months of being in transition while she refused to decide what state she wanted to live in, let alone a specific location, they returned to Florida. At his request they looked at places here so he could be near me and after another month of her dragging her feet he finally got her to tell him what she really wanted, which was to move back to the town they had been living in. A verbal confrontation happened, after which she left, without him, without asking my parents if he could stay, and never answered his phone calls until we went to the motel she was staying at and made her talk to us. More arguments, followed by him taking the clothes he had left in her room and what belongings he had in the car and moving in with me and my parents.
The next month was spent trying to get her to give him a large folder of his personal information (birth certification, medical information, student loan information, including a statement that he was born to American parents abroad which she threatened to dispose of so she could have him deported). She eventually gave that up but she still won't let him have his stuff from the storage unit. Her position on that stuff has gone from dragging her feet on a time to meet her at the unit and remove his stuff, to changing the locks and wanting him to wait for her to sort it out and return it to him, to outright refusal to return it.

Since it's in another county and his mother is in no mood to let it go we aren't sure whether the police would be able to help us and we aren't sure whether it would do any good to file a small claim since he would be hardput to come up with proof that the stuff is his if she said that those items were something she was storing it for someone else. Any advice?
 
Small claims is not an option.
One can only get monetary awards from small claims actions.
Small claims court's can't order specific performance, which is what you're seeking.
But, before we get too far afield: how old is he?
How old are you?

If he's a minor, it isn't his stuff. It's his mom's stuff.
If he's an adult, he'd be better off working with her to get his stuff.
I don't see a legal remedy here without receipts to prove he bought the stuff.
 
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