Franklin County District Court Guide

Note: Kansas probate docket fees are set STATEWIDE by K.S.A. 59-104 and are identical in all 105 counties. There is no probate tax, no value-based probate filing fee and no county-set probate docket fee: K.S.A. 59-104(a)(2) says the docket fee may be established only by an act of the legislature and that no other authority exists to collect one. The table charges $109.50 for "Probate of an estate or of a will", $49.50 for a determination of descent, $48.50 for refusal to grant letters of administration, $48.50 for filing a will and affidavit under K.S.A. 59-618a, $48.50 each to terminate a joint tenancy or a life estate, $69.50 each for guardianship, conservatorship, trusteeship or a combined guardianship and conservatorship, $23.50 for certified probate proceedings under K.S.A. 59-213, and $173.00 for decrees in probate from another state. CURRENCY WARNING: the revisor text of K.S.A. 59-104(a)(2) still prints a supreme court non-judicial-personnel charge of up to $22 per docket fee authorized "On and after July 1, 2019, through June 30, 2025", an authority that lapsed on 2025-06-30. 2026 ch. 35 (HB 2393), approved April 3, 2026, moves that window to July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2030, so a clerk may quote between $109.50 and $131.50. The charge is permissive, not automatic, and whether this court imposes it is published only on the Kansas judicial branch host, which this project may not collect from, so it is not asserted here. Publication of the notice to creditors is a separate cost paid to a newspaper. Where the total assets of the estate do not exceed $10,000 the court may remit the court costs (K.S.A. 59-2215), and K.S.A. 59-104(b) allows a poverty affidavit in lieu of the fee.