You don’t have to know what comes next.
Someone died, and you were named executor. That job takes about 570 hours spread over 16 to 20 months, and it means dealing with roughly 40 institutions that each want slightly different paperwork.
Their Matters does that job. Not a checklist that hands the work back to you — we file the petition, write to the banks, chase the ones that don’t answer, track every deadline, and give you a complete record at the end.
We are not taking cases yet. Arizona and North Carolina are first. We will not open in a state until a lawyer licensed there has reviewed a complete filing packet we produced, because the alternative is finding out we were wrong using somebody’s actual estate. Ask us to write when that changes.
The price, before you give us anything
Most people have no idea what settling an estate costs. It is commonly 3–8% of the estate, and you usually find out afterwards. Our fee is flat, it is priced by how complicated the estate is — never as a percentage of what your mother left — and it is on this page.
First Days
FreeWhether this estate needs probate at all, what the deadlines are, and eight certified death certificates ordered.
Core
$1,500Non-probate transfers and small-estate administration. Every institution handled. No court appearance.
Complete
$4,500 – $8,500Full probate. Petition, Letters, creditors, inventory, tax filings, distribution, closing. Attorney of record included. Which band you are in is decided up front and disclosed before you pay.
Fiduciary
From $12,000Their Matters serves as agent for the executor, or as co-fiduciary. We hold the pen. Available in some states only.
No percentage of the estate. No hourly billing. No surprise invoice. If we quote you a band and the estate turns out to be more complicated than we thought, that is our mistake to absorb, not yours to pay for.
One person runs your case
Not a ticket queue and not a chat box. A named Case Lead, with a phone number that reaches them, who knows what stage your case is at without looking it up.
Dana Reyes
Case Lead
“I’ll call you on the first day and tell you the three things that actually have to happen this week. Everything else can wait, and I’ll tell you that too.”
What the work actually looks like
Most of the work is not the court. The court is one filing and then a wait. The work is the forty organizations that each need a certified death certificate, a copy of the Letters dated within the last sixty days, and their own form — and each of which will reject the first attempt without telling you why.
This is one of those letters. There is nothing clever about it. There are about ninety more.
Estate Services
National Bank, N.A.
PO Box —
Re: Estate of Margaret Ann Marsh · Case AW-00001
To the Estate Services team:
Enclosed for the above estate: one certified copy of the death certificate, one certified copy of the Letters of Appointment issued [date] — within sixty days as your estate unit requires — the executor’s photo identification, and your completed Estate Information Form.
The decedent held accounts ending [****] and [****]. Please confirm the date-of-death balance of each and advise what further documentation you require to retitle them to the estate.
As one account holds securities, an affidavit of domicile is enclosed. If a medallion signature guarantee is also needed, please say so in your first response rather than after the transfer request, as that has added several weeks in previous matters.
Correspondence on this estate should be directed to the undersigned.
First week
We order eight certified death certificates — most institutions keep the copy you send, and you will need more than you think. We find out whether this estate needs probate at all; roughly a third do not. We check the things that go wrong in week one: an empty house whose insurance lapses after 30 days, auto-payments draining a frozen account, and any Social Security paid for or after the month of death, which has to go back.
Months one to nine
We open the estate, publish notice to creditors, and work the institutions in parallel rather than one at a time. You will not see a queue of forty. You will see 34 of 41 complete.
The end
Final accounting, distributions the executor signs, and the Record: every filing, every letter, every receipt, every valuation, indexed. You are personally liable as executor. The Record is what protects you.
One thing we cannot compress: the creditor claim period. Depending on the state it runs three to six months from the date notice is published, and no amount of technology shortens it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What we compress is the other twelve months.
If you are not the executor
Most of the people who send a family to us will not be the person named in the will. They are the advisor who still has the accounts, or the funeral director who saw the family yesterday.