Ohio pays its executors on four different bases, and only one of them is the probate estate
R.C. 2113.35 is a percentage schedule, but the percentages are applied to several distinct pools rather than to one estate value. Subsection (A) allows fees “upon the amount of all the personal property, including the income from the personal property, that is received and accounted for by them and upon the proceeds of real property that is sold” — four per cent on the first $100,000, three per cent above $100,000 and not exceeding $400,000, and two per cent above $400,000.
Subsection (B) adds two more pools at a flat one per cent each. The first is “the value of real property that is not sold.” The second is the one that surprises people: one per cent “on the value of all property that is not subject to administration and that would have been includable for purposes of computing the Ohio estate tax, except joint and survivorship property, had the decedent died on December 31, 2012.” Ohio repealed its estate tax for deaths after that date, but the repealed statute survives here purely as a definition of which non-probate assets count — and joint and survivorship property is carved out of it.
The valuation rule in subsection (C) is not uniform either: real property sold is valued at “the gross proceeds of sale,” while everything else is valued at fair market value “as of the date of death of the decedent.” A sale at a price above or below date-of-death value therefore changes the fee on that parcel, and does so in only one direction.
Two limits close the section. The fees “shall be received in full compensation for all their ordinary services,” so ordinary work is not billable on top of the schedule. And under subsection (D), if the probate court finds after a hearing that the executor or administrator “has not faithfully discharged the duties,” the court “may deny the executor or administrator any compensation whatsoever or may allow the executor or administrator the reduced compensation that the court thinks proper.” The schedule is an entitlement for work done properly, not for holding the appointment.
This section covers ordinary services only. Extraordinary services, attorney fees, and any fee a will itself directs are governed elsewhere and are not computed from these percentages.
Source: Ohio Rev. Code § 2113.35 (commissions), eff. Sept. 29, 2015, 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.