Is a Living Trust Worth It in Montana? (2026)

Updated August 20, 2026. Short answer for Montana: Montana publishes no percentage schedule, so anyone quoting you a firm probate figure is estimating. The question that is answerable here is the one that decides most cases: whether the estate can use the small-estate shortcut at all — and in Montana, a house in sole name does not qualify, whatever the dollar figure says — so if the estate includes one, the shortcut is closed and full administration is the default. The dollar figure: $100,000, net of liens/encumbrances, under MCA §72-3-1101.

Does your estate even face probate in Montana?

A living trust earns its cost by keeping assets out of probate. So the first question is not what a trust costs — it is whether the estate would go through probate anyway. In Montana the shortcut is: $100,000 (net of liens/encumbrances) — collection of personal property by affidavit, MCA §72-3-1101 (verified on the official Montana Code Annotated site); 30-day wait. Summary administration also available under MCA §72-3-1103/1104.

Because that route is limited to personal property, a solely owned house cannot ride through it. For most households the house is the estate, which is why this single line decides the trust question more often than the dollar threshold does. Full detail and citations: Montana probate cost.

Why Montana will not give you one number

Montana uses a reasonableness standard rather than a percentage schedule. What the statute fixes is the standard, not the sum: Reasonable compensation (MCA §72-3-631). Montana’s former percentage cap (3% of first $40,000, 2% above) was removed by 2019 legislation; no percentage schedule today. Three things then decide the bill — how many billable hours administration takes, whether anyone contests, and whether the estate escapes through the small-estate route above. Court filing alone is varies by county.

Because the fee is not computable, treat any published Montana probate figure as an estimate — including ours. What is not an estimate is the small-estate gate, and that is usually the decisive fact.

What a living trust costs, and what it does not fix in Montana

An attorney-drafted revocable living trust package runs a median of $2,700, with the middle half of firms charging $2,500–$3,500 — roughly $1,700 more than the $1,000 median for an attorney-drafted will package. Full breakdown: what a living trust costs.

A trust only avoids probate for assets actually retitled into it. An unfunded trust is the most expensive document in estate planning: you pay for it and the estate goes through probate anyway. Budget for the retitling, not just the drafting.

On the tax side there is nothing extra to solve here: Montana levies neither a state estate tax nor an inheritance tax, so the trust question in Montana is purely about probate cost, delay and privacy — not about death taxes.

Where this usually goes wrong

The two failures that cost the most in Montana are not choosing the wrong document. They are buying a trust and never retitling the house into it, and assuming the trust solved a death-tax exposure it cannot touch. Both are decided years before an estate is settled, which is the only time either is cheap to fix. If the estate is large enough for the arithmetic above to matter, here is what to look for in an advisor who prices the whole estate picture.

Run your own numbers

The break-even depends on your estate, not the average one. The will-vs-trust break-even calculator computes it from the statutory schedules, and the probate cost calculator prices administration in Montana against any other state.

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