Central Falls Probate Court Guide

Note: Rhode Island probate filing fees are STATUTORY AND STATEWIDE, not municipal. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-22-21 charges every petition to probate a will or to appoint an administrator, custodian, guardian or conservator 1.0% of the decedent's PERSONAL PROPERTY over which the court has jurisdiction, with a $30 floor and a $1,500 ceiling, paid before the petition is filed on the petitioner's own estimate and revised up or down when the estimate proves wrong. R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-8.1-20(b) then adds a flat $4.00 Rhode Island Historical Records Trust assessment to every instrument filed under § 33-22-21, which is why the figures a Rhode Island city or town actually publishes are $34 and $1,504 rather than $30 and $1,500. The amounts stored here are that combined statutory total. Real property is NOT in the fee base: § 33-9-1 limits the probate inventory to personal property and everything other than real property, so a fee estimate that includes the house is wrong and will be clamped by the ceiling in a way that hides the error. Because the fee is 1% of personal property, the $34 minimum covers a personal estate of $3,000 or less and the $1,504 maximum is reached at $150,000 of personal property. § 33-22-29 forbids a municipal probate court from adopting any local rule that would "expand, contract or otherwise vary any specific provision of title 33", so no city or town may set its own tariff; § 33-22-25 lets a council or town meeting direct where the money goes and pay a salary in lieu of fees, which is disposition, not price. Newspaper advertising under § 33-22-11 is a third-party cost the clerk collects in advance and it IS genuinely per-municipality, so it is recorded separately below rather than folded into these amounts. Statutory fee waivers exist only for guardianships (§§ 33-22-22, 33-15-15, 33-15-4.2); there is NO fee waiver for settling a decedent's estate. Fees per R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-22-21 and § 42-8.1-20, read at the Rhode Island General Assembly on 2026-08-02. Confirm the amount with this city or town's probate clerk before filing. Central Falls publishes its own charge sheet and it is the schedule that names the $4 assessment as the § 42-8.1-20 Historical Records Trust fee.