By Moshe B. Newman, Attorney · Published July 2026
If a family member has died and you’re facing probate in Michigan, one of your first questions is almost certainly: what will the lawyer cost? It’s a fair question, and it deserves a clearer answer than most people get. The honest starting point is that probate costs come in two very different buckets — attorney fees, which depend on the attorney and the engagement, and court charges, which are set by statute and are the same no matter who represents you. This article explains both, and how to avoid surprises with either.
Some states set probate attorney fees as a fixed percentage of the estate. Michigan does not. Here, the governing standard is reasonable compensation. Under MCL 700.3715(w), a personal representative is authorized to employ an attorney to help administer the estate and to pay that attorney reasonable compensation from estate assets. A parallel rule applies in protective proceedings such as conservatorships: under MCL 700.5413, an attorney whose services benefit the protected person’s estate is entitled to reasonable compensation from that estate.
“Reasonable” is not an empty word. Fee agreements in decedent estates are governed by Michigan Court Rule 5.313, the probate court has authority to review fees, and the burden of justifying a fee falls on the attorney — not on the family. In practice, this means every probate fee in Michigan is ultimately answerable to a judge.
Because there is no statutory fee schedule, Michigan probate attorneys generally use one of two billing models:
Neither model is inherently improper — both must satisfy the reasonableness standard. But they feel very different to the family living through the process. At The Legacy Law Firm, our practice is to quote a flat fee before any work begins, based on what the estate actually involves. If the scope later changes in a material way — say, a will contest erupts — we discuss it openly and agree on the change before proceeding, in writing.
Whatever your attorney charges, the probate court charges its own fees. These are government charges fixed by statute, identical in every county, and owed whether or not you hire a lawyer at all. The two main ones:
Opening a decedent’s estate in a Michigan probate court currently costs $175 — a $150 filing fee plus a $25 electronic filing system fee. Certified copies of the letters of authority, publication of the notice to creditors in a local newspaper, and any bond premium the court requires are additional, and vary case by case.
Michigan probate courts must also collect an inventory fee based on the value of the estate’s assets. The schedule in MCL 600.871 uses graduated brackets; for estates between $100,000 and $500,000, the fee is $362.50 plus 1/8 of 1% of the value over $100,000. Two concrete examples:
For deaths on or after March 28, 2013, a mortgage or other lien secured by real estate is deducted from that property’s value before the fee is calculated — so a $300,000 home with a $150,000 mortgage counts as $150,000 for inventory fee purposes. The State Court Administrative Office publishes an official inventory fee calculator, and you can find your county’s probate court contact information in our Michigan probate court directory.
Here is the part that surprises many families, in a good way: when an attorney is engaged to help the personal representative administer the estate, reasonable attorney fees and court costs are ordinarily paid from estate assets as expenses of administration — not out of the family’s own pockets. The personal representative may advance a filing fee early on and be reimbursed, but the estate itself bears the cost of its own administration before distributions are made to heirs.
The picture is different if an heir or beneficiary hires separate counsel to protect their individual interests — for instance, in a dispute over a will or trust. That representation is generally the client’s own expense, although courts can shift fees in some circumstances.
Since attorney time drives attorney cost, the same factors tend to drive fees up in any billing model: real estate that must be sold, missing or disorganized records, family disagreement, creditor claims, tax complications, and out-of-state assets. Conversely, a well-organized estate with a cooperative family and clean paperwork is a smaller engagement — and should be priced like one. This is exactly why we quote after a conversation about the actual estate rather than off a rate card: two estates of identical dollar value can involve very different amounts of work.
Before assuming full probate is necessary, it’s worth checking the size of the estate. For deaths in 2026, Michigan’s small estate procedures apply to estates valued at $53,000 or less (a base of $50,000, adjusted for inflation), and they are dramatically simpler and cheaper than full administration. And if you are reading this while everyone is still alive and well, the larger lesson is that probate can often be avoided entirely with a funded trust, a Lady Bird deed, and clean beneficiary designations — our flat-fee planning packages exist for precisely that reason.
No. Michigan has no statutory percentage fee for probate attorneys. The standard is reasonable compensation: a personal representative may employ an attorney and pay reasonable fees from estate assets under MCL 700.3715(w), and fee agreements in decedent estates are governed by Michigan Court Rule 5.313. The probate court can review any fee for reasonableness.
When the attorney is hired to help the personal representative administer the estate, reasonable attorney fees are ordinarily paid from estate assets as an expense of administration — not from the family’s personal funds. Heirs who hire their own separate counsel, for example in a dispute, generally pay that attorney themselves.
The main court charges are the $175 filing fee to open the estate and the inventory fee under MCL 600.871, which is calculated from the value of the estate’s assets — for example, $487.50 on a $200,000 estate. Certified copies, publication of notice, and any bond premium are additional. These are owed regardless of which attorney you hire, or whether you hire one at all.
General articles can only take you so far — what you likely want is a number for your estate. We offer a free 20-minute screening call to hear the basics and tell you honestly what the estate needs, including whether a small-estate shortcut applies. For situations that need deeper analysis, we offer a $500 in-depth working session, credited toward your plan if you engage us. Either way, if we take the matter on, you will have a flat fee in writing before any work begins.
This article is general information about Michigan law, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws and dollar thresholds change; figures current as of 2026. For advice on your specific situation, schedule a consultation.