Westerly Probate Court Guide

Note: Rhode Island probate fees are set by statute and are uniform in all 39 municipal probate courts, because R.I. Gen. Laws § 33-22-29 provides that no local administrative rule of a probate court may expand, contract or otherwise vary any specific provision of Title 33. There is no flat fee to open an estate: § 33-22-21 charges ONE PER CENT of the decedent's personal property, banded by a $30 statutory minimum and a $1,500 statutory maximum, and real estate is never in the base because § 33-9-1 keeps real property out of the probate inventory. On top of that, § 42-8.1-20(b) imposes an additional assessment of four dollars for EVERY instrument filed for recording pursuant to §§ 33-22-21 and 34-13-7, so what a filer actually pays is $34 at the floor and $1,504 at the ceiling. That is why Rhode Island municipal charge sheets print $34 and $1,504 rather than $30 and $1,500, and why the small-estate line prints $39: the $30 statement fee under § 33-24-1(b), plus the $4 assessment, plus $5 for the certification of appointment. The fee is paid before the petition is filed, based on the petitioner's estimate, and is revised up or down later with a further payment or a rebate. The clerk separately collects the cost of newspaper advertising in advance under § 33-22-11; that cost is NOT a court fee, no statute fixes it, and it is the charge that genuinely differs from one city or town to the next. Waivers signed by all interested parties on form PC-9.1 remove it. Schedule: https://webserver.rilegislature.gov/Statutes/TITLE33/33-22/33-22-21.htm. Westerly also publishes its own charge sheet, recorded verbatim in municipal_published_fee_schedule on this record. Read the two together: its bundled totals add the advertising cost the clerk collects in advance, so a line there is not comparable to the statutory figure above.