Guides for real money decisions

Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: Kentucky executor compensation is capped by KRS §395.150(1) at 5% of the value of the decedent’s personal estate, plus a separate 5% of any income the executor collects while administering the estate. Real property is not part of either base; it only affects the fee indirectly, as grounds for […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Michigan sets no percentage schedule — compensation for the personal representative and attorneys is simply reasonable under EPIC. But Michigan does something most states do not: it charges the estate a value-scaled probate inventory fee, a court charge that rises with the estate and has nothing to do with […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Washington sets no percentage — the personal representative receives such compensation as the court deems just and reasonable. The bigger fact is structural: most Washington estates are administered with nonintervention powers, which keeps the court out almost entirely, so in practice nobody reviews the fee unless a beneficiary objects. […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Virginia sets no statutory percentage. What actually decides an executor’s fee is the Commissioner of Accounts for the circuit — a court-appointed officer who audits the accounting and applies a published guideline scale. Those guidelines are local, not statewide, and they are guidelines. The statute, and what it does […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Pennsylvania has no statutory percentage for the executor. Compensation must be “reasonable and just.” The widely quoted Johnson estate schedule is an Orphans’ Court custom that courts often reference — it is not enacted law, and calling it “Pennsylvania’s statutory schedule” is simply wrong. What the statute says 20 […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Iowa’s schedule is a ceiling. The statute allows such reasonable fees as the court determines, “but not in excess of” the listed commissions — so the percentages are the most that can be paid, not an entitlement, and courts routinely allow less. The maximum schedule Iowa Code §633.197 allows […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Missouri’s percentage schedule is a minimum — a floor, not a cap. The court shall allow more where reasonable compensation exceeds it. That is the opposite of how most people read a fee schedule, and the exact opposite of neighbouring Iowa, whose near-identical schedule is a ceiling. The minimum […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Georgia’s 2.5% in and 2.5% out is a default, not a floor or a ceiling. It applies only where the will does not provide compensation and there is no agreement. A Georgia will that states the executor’s compensation displaces the statute entirely — which is why reading the will […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: Ohio’s executor commission is statutory — 4%, 3%, 2% — but the part that changes the answer is the two extra 1% charges: 1% on real property that is not sold, and 1% on certain property that never entered probate at all. An estate whose main asset is a […]

Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: New Jersey pays the executor two statutory commissions, not one: a corpus commission on the estate’s principal and a separate 6% income commission on income the estate earns during administration. Almost every summary online mentions only the first. The corpus commission Under N.J.S.A. 3B:18-14, the commission on estate corpus […]

The state-by-state estate-recovery comparison covers all 51 jurisdictions as of September 3, 2026. The seven added that day: Medicaid estate recovery in Arkansas (probate estate only), Medicaid estate recovery in Colorado (probate estate only), Medicaid estate recovery in Connecticut (probate estate only), Medicaid estate recovery in Delaware (probate estate only), Medicaid estate recovery in Mississippi […]

Guides › Medicaid and Your House Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: adding a child to the deed is the most common do-it-yourself Medicaid move — and usually the worst one available. It is a gift of half the house the day it records: within the 60-month look-back, that is a penalty period computed on […]