One estate, several months at a clerk's counter, and a lot of reading about fee rules that vary by state. None of this is legal advice; it is a record of how the process looked from the applicant's side.
An estate administration is a sequence, not a single event, and the sequence is mostly fixed. A petition opens the case, the court issues a document that proves your authority, creditors get notice, assets get counted, debts and taxes get paid, and what remains goes to the people named in the will or set by state law. Each of those stages has a form, a filing fee, and a deadline attached. What varies is how much judgment each one requires, and judgment is the thing you are actually buying when you hire counsel.
Opening the case, and what the first filing really costs
The first filing is a petition to admit the will and appoint a personal representative, the term many states use in place of executor. You attach the original will, a certified death certificate, and a list of heirs and beneficiaries with their addresses. Court filing fees for opening an estate are set by statute or local rule and are published, usually as a flat charge or a figure that steps up with the estate's value. Call the clerk and ask for the current schedule before you assume anything. This step is clerical for most families with a valid, signed, witnessed will and no one objecting.
It stops being clerical fast under a few conditions. If the will is unsigned, undated, holographic, or contradicted by a later document, if an heir has already written to the court, if the decedent lived in one state and owned real property in another, or if no will exists at all and the family tree is complicated, the petition becomes a legal argument rather than a form. Paying an attorney a few hundred dollars for an hour of review before you file is cheaper than paying to unwind a defective appointment later.
Letters, the employer identification number, and the first real month
Once the judge signs, the clerk issues letters testamentary, or letters of administration where there is no will. That single certified page is what banks, brokerages, and county recorders accept as proof you may act. Order several certified copies at once, because institutions keep them and many will not accept one older than sixty days. With letters in hand you apply to the IRS for an employer identification number for the estate, which oversees federal tax administration and requires the estate to have its own number rather than the decedent's Social Security number. Then you open an estate checking account and stop using any other account for estate money.
This month is almost entirely errands. Notify the Social Security Administration, redirect mail, cancel automatic payments, secure the house and confirm the homeowners insurance carrier knows the property is vacant, and start a ledger on day one. No attorney is needed for any of it. The cost here is your time, plus certified copy charges and the recording fees you will pay later, and the risk is disorganization rather than liability.
Creditor notice and the claims window
Most states require published notice to unknown creditors in a newspaper of general circulation, plus direct mailed notice to creditors you know about. That opens a claims period, commonly a few months from publication or from the mailed notice, after which late claims are barred. The publication charge is billed by the paper and is modest. Handling the notice itself is a form-and-calendar task, and a competent executor can do it.
Deciding what to do with the claims that arrive is different work. A hospital lien, a credit card balance the family disputes, a Medicaid estate recovery notice, or a claim that exceeds what the estate can pay all raise questions about priority, allowance, and personal exposure. If the estate looks insolvent, or a claim arrives that you intend to reject, that is the point to bring in a Probate Attorney for a discrete piece of work rather than the whole administration. Ask for an hourly engagement limited to the claim.
Inventory, appraisal, and the tax filings nobody warned you about
Within a set number of days after appointment, usually ninety, you file an inventory listing probate assets at date-of-death value. Bank and brokerage balances come from the institutions. Real property and closely held business interests generally need an appraisal, and appraiser fees are a real line item that the estate pays. Vehicles are valued from a recognized guide and retitled through the DMV. Separately, you may owe a final individual income tax return for the decedent and an income tax return for the estate itself if it earns enough after death.
Valuation is arithmetic once you have the numbers, so the inventory itself is a filing task. The tax returns are where an accountant, more often than an attorney, earns the fee, particularly if there is rental income, a sold house, or a retirement account with a beneficiary problem. Budget for that professional separately from legal fees, because they are different services with different rates.
Distribution, receipts, and closing the case
After the claims period closes and taxes are settled, you pay allowed claims in statutory order, then distribute. Get a signed receipt and release from every beneficiary before the money leaves, and file those receipts with your final accounting. The accounting shows every dollar in and out, matched to your ledger, and the court either approves it or asks questions. If all beneficiaries sign waivers, many states allow an informal close that skips a hearing. Where a beneficiary objects, where you are distributing a house among siblings, or where you took a fee as executor and someone questions it, an attorney's review before you file is money well spent.
The honest arithmetic is that a straightforward estate is perhaps a dozen filings spread over eight to fourteen months, and an executor with a calendar can carry most of them. What you are paying for, when you pay, is a judgment call at four or five specific junctions. Hire for those, and do the paperwork yourself.