It pays to ask the price

A story from the front lines:
In sum: the moral of the story is: It pays to call around and ask attorneys what they will charge for what work in each case.
In this case, it was a simple probate ….nothing complicated….filing some paperwork and getting an executor appointed to transfer assets and providing some basic advice. In this case, someone I know in Florida needed to probate her husband’s estate. I now know why Florida doesn’t have an estate tax…..because the attorneys wrote their own law to get 3% of all assets-in trust or not-for probating any estate over $75000. If you don’t call them out on the reasonableness of that fee…of course, they will assert it!! I found this person another attorney that would do the probate for 7%!!!! of the cost it could have been. So if the legal fee could have been $75000. it would now be $5,250.
Big difference to me!!