Managing contacts

I'm trying to tidy the following fragment of code:

if (this.Details.Recipients.Count > 0)
            this.Recipient = this.Details.Recipients[0];
        else
        {
            this.Recipient = new Contact();
            this.Details.Recipients.Add(this.Recipient);
        }
        if (this.Details.CCs.Count > 0)
            this.CC = this.Details.CCs[0];
        else
        {
            this.CC = new Contact();
            this.Details.CCs.Add(this.CC);
        }
        if (this.Details.BCCs.Count > 0)
            this.BCC = this.Details.BCCs[0];
        else
        {
            this.BCC = new Contact();
            this.Details.BCCs.Add(this.BCC);
        }

But when I simplify it in the following way, I run into problems because I have to pass the objects by ref. And if I do that, then I get an error (A property, indexer or dynamic member access may not be passed as an out or ref):

InitialiseContacts(this.Details.Recipients, this.Recipient);
        InitialiseContacts(this.Details.CCs, this.CC);
        InitialiseContacts(this.Details.BCCs, this.BCC);
    }

    static void InitialiseContacts(ObservableCollection contacts, Contact contact)
    {
        if (contacts.Count > 0)
            contact = contacts[0];
        else
        {
            contact = new Contact();
            contacts.Add(contact);
        }
    }

Any ideas?

So I think the error you is getting is hopefully obvious. You can't pass a property by ref. There is quite a few answers if you google this. Here's a quick one I found on stack overflow

So instead don't pass in the object, but rather have a new instance returned from the method. Something along the lines of

this.BCC = FirstOrCreateIfEmpty(this.Details.BCCs);
this.CC = FirstOrCreateIfEmpty(this.Details.CCs);

public Contact FirstOrCreateIfEmpty(List contacts)
{
    if(contacts.Any())
    {
        return contacts.First();
    } 

    var contact = new Contact();
    contacts.Add(contact);

    return contact; 
}

StackExchange Code Review Q#43580, answer score: 6