Who Gets Paid for Probate?
It’s easy to pinpoint how much time you spend on your job and how tiring it is. This is especially true in jobs where work supervisors text you and email you at all hours of the day and night; a salaried employee’s work is never done. What makes things more exhausting is that a pile of family obligations is always awaiting you when you come home from work, too. This phenomenon is most noticeable in midlife, when you are part of the so-called sandwich generation, responsible for the tasks, great and small, that contribute to the wellbeing of both your children and of your parents. In recent years, journalists have started to refer to this immense workload as unpaid labor. If your parents’ estate is in probate, this is a rite of passage whereby you are no longer part of the sandwich generation; you are now officially an elder. Probate is a big job, though; the good news is that it is not just unpaid labor. Who gets paid for shepherding an estate through probate, and how much do they get paid? To answer your questions about probate, including payment for the work of settling the estate, contact a Bronx probate attorney.
How Does Payment Work for Probate Lawyers?
Probate is a series of legal formalities; imagine multiplying the hassle of filing taxes by the hassle of buying or selling a house. How stressful this is depends on whether you naturally incline to such tasks, or whether you regularly do them in your work. Every personal representative of a deceased person’s estate has the right to hire a probate lawyer to represent him or her in probate court. Hiring a lawyer is not obligatory, though; you also have the option to represent yourself.
Depending on the complexity of the probate case, your probate lawyer might charge an hourly fee, or they might charge on contingency, where you pay a percentage of the estate when it settles. For simple matters, they might even charge a flat fee for probate-related services. You always have the right to pay your lawyer out of the estate, instead of paying from your personal funds.
Can You Pay Yourself If You Are the Personal Representative of the Estate?
Likewise, every personal representative of an estate is entitled to payment, regardless of whether the personal representative hires a lawyer. The personal representative of the estate gets paid a percentage of the estate; the higher the value of the estate, the lower the percentage the personal representative can collect. Some personal representatives choose to waive their fees, especially if they are family members of the decedent. Collecting a fee can cause resentment among your relatives, the other beneficiaries of the estate. Furthermore, your personal representative fee is taxable income, whereas inherited money is not.
Schedule a Confidential Consultation With a Bronx Estate Planning Attorney
A probate lawyer can help you settle an estate where the testator of the will has designated you as the personal representative. Contact Cavallo & Cavallo in the Bronx, New York to set up a consultation.
Source:
estateexec.com/Docs/executor-fee-calculator/NY