Orleans Probate Division Guide

Note: Vermont probate filing fees are set STATEWIDE BY STATUTE at 32 V.S.A. § 1434 and are identical in all 14 probate districts. No county sets, keeps or varies one: § 1434(a) directs the money to the State, with the single exception of the two $30.00 will-safekeeping fees under subdivisions (18) and (19), which go 'for the benefit of the county in which the fee was collected' -- a destination-of-revenue rule, not a rate rule. WHY NO SINGLE FILING FEE IS STORED HERE: the entry fee to open a decedent's estate is BANDED by the value of the estate across eight steps, from $50.00 at $10,000.00 or less to $3,250.00 above $10,000,000.00, so the eight estate_* fields ARE the fact. A single number would render verbatim as 'Formal administration: $X' and would misstate seven of the eight bands. Each band is a flat amount, not a marginal rate: an estate is dropped into one band and pays that band's number, and the top band is open-ended, so a $12 million estate and a $12 billion estate both pay $3,250.00. Never interpolate inside a band and never extrapolate above the top one. The measure is the PROBATE estate at date-of-death fair market value (14 V.S.A. § 1051), so survivorship property, beneficiary-designated insurance and pay-on-death or transfer-on-death accounts are outside it. A SMALL ESTATE PAYS THE ORDINARY BAND FEE -- there is no small-estate rate: 14 V.S.A. § 1901(a)(3) requires only 'the filing fee', so a small estate pays $50.00 at or under $10,000.00 and $110.00 above it. The route saves process, not money. The one number stored as small_estate_affidavit is the $50.00 AFFIDAVIT PROCEDURE fee under § 1434(a)(30), a genuinely flat statutory amount for the V.R.P.P. 80.3 affidavit route, not a discounted entry fee. § 1434(b) charges NO fee for the documents that open an estate, trust or guardianship, including the first two certificates of appointment and the letters; additional certificates are $5.00 each under § 1434(c). One computed fee exists: a motion to reopen an estate for a newly discovered asset is priced by running the value of THAT ASSET alone through the same eight bands (§ 1434(a)(29)), and the ordinary $90.00 reopening fee at § 1431(e) expressly does not apply to estates. An appeal from the Probate Division goes to the CIVIL DIVISION of the Superior Court, not to the Supreme Court, and costs $295.00 under § 1431(b)(7). Court copies are $0.25 a page with a $1.00 minimum and certificates $5.00 under 32 V.S.A. § 1751(b)(1); the $18.50 charge for mail service of pleadings by certified restricted delivery is published on the Judiciary's fee page with its rule/statute cell reading 'N/A', so it is cited to the fee page rather than to a statute. Part of a filing fee may be waived under V.R.C.P. 3.1. Confirm the current amount with the Probate Division before filing.