Do I have to disclose gifts Mom made before she died?
Mom passed in May. I'm 48F and the named executor. Three of us, me, my brother (52) and my sister (44). The will splits everything equally, a third each. The estate is her house (about 310k, no mortgage), roughly 95k in a brokerage account and 40k in cash.
While pulling the statements together for probate I went back through her bank records. Over the last 12 years she gave my brother a substantial amount of money. A 40k down payment in 2016, a car in 2019, 22k to clear his credit cards in 2021, and she covered his mortgage for 14 months across 2022 and 2023. Adding up only what I can actually see, it comes to about 175k. There may be more further back, that's just as far as the online records go.
There is nothing in the will about any of it. No loan agreement, no promissory note, nothing written down anywhere. When I raised it with my brother he said it was between him and Mom, that it isn't anybody else's business, and that I should do my job and distribute what's there.
My sister has no idea. She has never asked and it has never come up once.
My understanding is that gifts made during her lifetime aren't estate assets, and that my accounting only covers what she owned on the date of death, so legally I don't think I'm required to raise it. But my sister will find out eventually, and if that happens after distribution she is going to want to know why I sat on it.
Do I put it in front of both of them, or do I stick to the estate and leave the rest alone?
Location: Ohio