Legality of Executor and Lawyer Percentage with Home Reverse Mortgage?

[Taxing Matters]

By the way, I think that the gross value of my mom's estate was $1 million. Is the executor and lawyer each entitled to 1.5% (3% between the two of them) of gross value, including IRA's and house?

They are each entitled to the statutory fee (unless they've agreed to a fee of less than that) based on the GROSS value of the entire probate estate. So you take the value of all the assets in the probate estate without deducting for debts of the estate and you determine the fee for the lawyer and the executor based off that number. If they were each entitled to 1.5% based on the gross value of the probate estate then the total fees would be 3% of the gross estate. This can be a very generous fee when the estate requires very little work. That's why lawyers and executors like statutory fee schedules based on the value of the estate in those states, like California, that use that system. Not suprisingly, those are also the states in which probate costs tend to be the highest in the country. I'd probably like it, too, if I were practicing in the People's Republic of California. But in the states I practice there is no such statutory fee schedule, so lawyers and executors get paid by the hour.

Assets that pass outside of probate do not count. IRAs are not probate assets if they have a pay on death beneficiary designation naming some individual as the beneficiary rather than the estate. But the house would be a probate asset unless it had been in a trust, was owned jointly with someone with a right of survivorship, or there was a transfer on deed deed recorded for the home prior to death.