Put together by one person who spent a year settling a parent's estate in El Paso County and wrote down the forms, the fees and the waiting periods while they were still fresh.
The engagement letter for an uncontested independent administration in El Paso County ran four pages, and the fee section was three paragraphs long. It named a flat amount, listed six things the amount covered, and then, in a paragraph headed additional services, described everything that would be billed separately at an hourly rate. That second paragraph is the one worth reading twice, because it is where a predictable cost quietly becomes an open-ended one. Nobody hides it. It is simply written in the register of a contract rather than the register of a quote, and most people skim it.
What the flat fee usually buys
A flat fee for an uncontested independent administration is priced against a known sequence of steps: preparing and filing the application for probate of the will and issuance of letters testamentary, arranging the posting period at the courthouse, appearing at the short prove-up hearing, preparing the oath, obtaining certified letters, and preparing the inventory, appraisement and list of claims or the affidavit in lieu of it. Some letters add the notice to beneficiaries and the published notice to unknown creditors. The common thread is that every one of those steps happens in nearly every case, in roughly the same amount of attorney time, which is exactly what makes a fixed price workable.
Ask the firm to confirm, in writing, whether the flat fee includes the county filing fee, the cost of certified copies, and publication costs, because those are third-party charges and are often passed through at cost on top of the fee. Ask how many certified copies are included, since banks, title companies and transfer agents each want their own. Ask whether the fee assumes one hearing. A careful reader also checks when the fee is earned and whether any part of it is refundable if the matter settles into something simpler, such as a muniment of title, after the letter is signed.
The exclusions are the real document
What falls outside a flat fee is reasonably consistent from firm to firm: any contest to the will, any application to determine heirship, any dispute among beneficiaries, any creditor claim that has to be litigated, sale of real property, ancillary probate of land in another state, preparation of tax returns, guardianship of a minor beneficiary, and reopening the estate after it closes. Deed preparation is frequently excluded even though heirs assume it is central to the job. So is chasing a bank that will not accept letters testamentary. Read that paragraph slowly and match it against what you already know about the family and the assets, because you usually know by then which of those doors is likely to open.
Hourly work in a contested matter is billed against a rate schedule, and the schedule normally distinguishes the partner, the associate and the paralegal, with the paralegal doing much of the document assembly at a materially lower rate. The letter should say the minimum billing increment, typically a tenth of an hour, and whether travel, telephone calls and email are billable. It should say whether a retainer is required, where it is held, and what triggers a request to replenish it. A good letter also commits to monthly statements with task descriptions, which is the only practical way to see a dispute getting expensive while there is still time to redirect it.
The executor's commission is a separate line
An executor's compensation does not come out of the attorney's fee and is not part of it. Texas law allows a personal representative a commission calculated as five percent of the sums actually received in cash and five percent of the sums actually paid out in cash, subject to a ceiling tied to a percentage of the estate's gross fair market value, and with cash on hand at death and money simply handed to beneficiaries generally excluded from the base. Many wills set compensation independently, and many family executors waive it. The commission is taxable income to the person who takes it, which matters because the IRS is responsible for how estates and their fiduciaries report to the federal government, while an equivalent amount left in the estate may pass to beneficiaries differently.
Questions to settle before signing
Ask what happens to the flat fee if the uncontested case becomes contested midway, since some letters convert the whole engagement to hourly and credit the flat fee, while others keep the fixed price for the original scope and bill only the new work. Ask who your day-to-day contact is. Ask for an estimate of total elapsed time to letters testamentary in your county. Then ask the firm to put the answers in the letter itself rather than in an email, because the letter is the document that governs.
A fee arrangement you understood before signing is one you can hold someone to nine months later, when the bank has lost the certified copy and the deed still needs drafting.