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is this usually a percent of the estate or if nothing is challenged does it even take a lawyers involvement if he prepared the will.

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Greg - based on this & other of your posts, it seems you are looking for business for 2 interrelated companies: heir-advance &/or inheritance advance. If so, you need to be paying for placing an ad on this site, like many, many companies (VITAS, a place fir mom, Dignity, etc) do.
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We paid $2000 for a lawyer to probate an estate worth $60K with no Will. On the other hand, we paid a $1 filing fee to administer another estate, worth less than $30K, with no Will and no lawyer assisting. We are in NY
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Greg, for other than contingency cases, attorneys routinely bill on the average of monthly. There are legitimate reasons for that: a law firm is a business, it has obligations to staff and partners and office suppliers. It needs to advance filing fees on behalf of clients. Like any other business, it needs a cash flow to meet those obligations.

Would you be comfortable with an employer that only paid you after all your work was done on a particular project? What if that project were several months long? How would YOU meet your obligations?

There's also the factor that some clients are deadbeats.
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I took my mother's to the clerk of court and probated it there. I only got a lawyer because I felt like some things needed to be said to them that would come better from him than directly from me. With my being the executor and the sole inheritor of my mother's estate plus some jointly owned with right of survivorship financial matters, there was really nothing left to probate.
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what did the lawyer charge you ?
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Attorneys usually use one of three methods to charge for probate work.... charge by the hour...... a flat fee..... or a percentage of the value of the estate assets. Your attorney may let you pick how you pay—for example, $250/hour or a $1,500 flat fee for handling a routine probate case.

The cost per hour can also vary depending on where you live... a large metro area would be more expensive than that of a smaller town. The cost will also vary depending if you are using an Elder Law attorney vs a general practice attorney. And the cost can vary if the attorney works solo with a paralegal or if the attorney works at a large firm. You will need to check around.
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I could only find what I paid the lawyer which was $500. I could not find the record for paying the clerk of court.Sorry.
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thanks so much
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Yes, well I've spoken to some people lately, going through probate, and some were talking about lawyers charging $4,000 to $5,000 for probate. Hard to say if hourly or flat fee is cheaper. But a lot of heirs I've spoken to over the past year had other issues and were getting an advance on their inheritance to get their own attorney... Or if they were the only heir they seemed to be applying for a service I have mentioned here before... an estate advance, probate loan or inheritance loan to get a probate attorney, since they said they were having trouble getting the executor or administrator to hire a good attorney to deal with probate. And they were talking about $10,000 or $15,000 inheritance loans from established companies like the ones I've mention before, so maybe they had other expenses to deal with, as I doubt legal fees would be that high! Although you never know, since those estates were pretty large, and a percentage to a lawyer or law firm can get expensive quickly I suppose. Then again, people these days use savings or a probate advance, probate loan, or estate advance, during probate to get rid of high interest debt like credit cards or lingering student loans or old bank loans. Inheritance advances or inheritance loans only have one payoff, usually when probate closes...plus no interest growing the inheritance loan or estate advance amount, which is good. Anyway, enough about estate loans or inheritance loans -- back to legal fees... I have never heard of probate attorneys that inexpensive, $1,500 or $250 per hr. Figures I often hear are in the $350 to $400 per hr. range, or $4,000 and up flat rate. Then again, I suppose rural areas far from large cities might be a lot cheaper for estate or family lawyers. Or easier to negotiate. But in my opinion, all of these probate attorneys should be paid when probate closes, paid out of the estate of course. Up front fees shouldn't be necessary, in my opinion. Then again, I'm not a lawyer. If I was, I might want to get paid in advance too.
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