Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

To provide an effective answer it would be necessary to review the actual documents in the chain of title. Do you have all of them? If not, I would start with a title company.

You need to clarify your question. By "original property owner" do you mean the grantor or the grantee of the unrecorded deed? Without that information it is impossible to answer your question.

In other words, are you saying:

1. Grantor gave deed, not recorded, then died. Grantee is still alive, but his brother now sold the property to someone else who is in possession? or

2. A person gave a grant deed to grantor, the deed was not recorded and then the grantor died, and now his brother sold the property to someone else who is in possession?