Pawtucket Probate Court Guide

Note: Rhode Island probate filing fees are STATUTORY and identical in all 39 city and town probate courts, so this court charges what every other Rhode Island probate court charges. Two statutes make the number. R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-22-21(a) charges one percent (1.0%) of the decedent's PERSONAL PROPERTY over which the court has jurisdiction on a petition to probate a will or to appoint an administrator, custodian, guardian or conservator, with a floor of $30 and a ceiling of $1,500, paid before the petition is filed, based 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 Historical Records Trust assessment to every instrument filed under § 33-22-21. So the counter minimum is $34 and the counter maximum is $1,504, and the fee stops rising once personal property reaches $150,000. REAL PROPERTY IS NOT IN THE BASE: § 33-9-1 keeps real property out of the probate inventory and § 33-22-21 charges only on personal property, so putting a Rhode Island house into the calculation produces a number many times the ceiling that the ceiling then silently hides. The $30 petition fee is expressly in lieu of all subsequent filing and recording fees in the same proceeding except the enumerated extras: $5 for a certificate of appointment, $1.50 per page for copies and $3.00 to certify (§ 33-22-21(c)). The small-estate route costs $30 to file the § 33-24-1 or § 33-24-2 statement plus the $4 assessment plus $5 for the certification of appointment, which is the $39 that Providence, Warwick, Pawtucket, East Providence, Cumberland and Coventry each publish. NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING IS NOT A COURT FEE and it is NOT uniform: § 33-22-11 lets the court require the newspaper's cost in advance, and each municipality publishes its own figure. This court's own published charge sheet, where it publishes one, is recorded verbatim in municipal_published_schedule and is never carried across from a neighbouring city or town. Rhode Island has NO fee waiver for a decedent's estate: the three Title 33 waivers (§ 33-22-22 veterans' benefits, § 33-15-15 public welfare petitioner, § 33-15-4.2 good Samaritan guardianship) are all guardianship provisions. Confirm the total with this court before you file.