Nebraska executor fees

Nebraska is one of the few uniform states that wrote the fee factors into the statute

Nebraska’s compensation section, § 30-2480, is the uniform text word for word: a personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation for services; where a will fixes compensation and there is no contract with the decedent about it, the representative may renounce that provision before qualifying and take reasonable compensation instead; and the representative may renounce all or part of the fee, with a written renunciation filed with the court. Read on its own it tells you nothing Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts or North Dakota do not also say.

What makes Nebraska different is the next section. Section 30-2482(2), added by Laws 1980, LB 694, § 10, lists seven factors as guides to the reasonableness of a fee: the time and labour required, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved and the skill needed to do the work properly; the likelihood, if apparent to the representative, that taking the work will preclude other employment; the fee customarily charged in the locality for similar services; the amount involved and the results obtained; the time limitations imposed by the representative or by the circumstances; the nature and length of the relationship between the representative and the person doing the work; and the experience, reputation and ability of that person.

The Nebraska Supreme Court has read those factors as legislative direction rather than decoration. In In re Estate of Gsantner, 288 Neb. 222, 846 N.W.2d 646 (2014), the court held that the section 30-2482 factors “provide an indication of what facts the Legislature intended to be considered when determining a reasonable fee,” that weighing the relevant ones is within the trial court’s discretion, and that a personal representative’s right to reasonable compensation exists independently of the rights of the estate.

One jurisdictional point catches people out. In In re Estate of Koetter, 312 Neb. 549, 980 N.W.2d 376 (2022), the court held that the county court, not the district court, decides whether a representative or nominated representative is reimbursed by the estate for attorney fees incurred in a will contest — even where the contest itself began in county court and was then transferred to the district court.

Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 30-2480, 30-2482, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.