Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Vermont has no statutory percentage fee schedule for either the probate attorney or the executor. The only compensation statute on the books, 14 V.S.A. section 1065, allows the executor or administrator reasonable fees for services and necessary expenses, and courts extend that same reasonable-fee, court-approved standard to attorney compensation paid from the estate.
The statute: 14 V.S.A. section 1065, not a percentage schedule
Vermont’s probate code addresses compensation in a single, short provision, 14 V.S.A. §1065, Fees and expenses, in Title 14’s chapter on Inventory, Appraisal, and Accounts. It states that an executor or administrator shall be allowed necessary expenses in the care, management, and settlement of the estate and reasonable fees for services, and that if the will sets its own compensation term, that term controls unless the executor formally renounces it or the court orders otherwise. There is no companion section anywhere in Title 14 that sets a percentage rate for the attorney handling the estate, and a full-text search of Title 14 for percent, percentage, attorney’s fees, and counsel fees turns up nothing resembling a fee schedule.
How attorney fees actually get approved in Vermont probate
Because Title 14 does not carve out a separate rule for the attorney, counsel fees paid from a Vermont estate are treated as an administration expense reviewed under the same reasonableness standard that section 1065 sets for the executor’s own compensation. In practice this means the fee is not self-executing: it is presented to the Probate Division of the Superior Court as part of the fiduciary account, and the court can allow, reduce, or question it if it is not adequately supported. Vermont’s statutes do not prescribe a specific fee-petition form or itemized-billing rule for attorney compensation the way some states do, so the burden falls on the executor and the attorney to document the work and justify the amount as reasonable.
The practical consequence: no benchmark number to point to
Because neither the attorney’s fee nor the executor’s commission is pegged to a percentage in Vermont, there is no simple percentage-of-the-estate figure a family can look up in the statute the way they could in Florida or California. Fee expectations are set by negotiation with counsel and ultimately by what the Probate Division will approve as reasonable on the facts of that estate, not by a formula anyone can calculate in advance from the statute book.
The rest of the arithmetic: Vermont probate cost.
How the fee models compare across all 51 jurisdictions: probate cost by state, and the national picture on what a probate attorney costs.
Statutory text read at each state’s own legislature or official code publisher. General information, not legal advice; fee statutes change and a court retains the final say on what is reasonable.
The attorney fee above is separate from what the court itself charges just to open the case, see the Vermont probate filing fee.