Setting an Executor's Fee Without a Fight in St. Thomas

The situation

Abdi, a pharmacist, was named estate trustee in his mother's will after she died in St. Thomas following a short illness. She had been widowed years earlier, after his father Paulo passed away, and had managed her own finances independently ever since. An estate trustee — sometimes called an executor — is the person a will names to gather the deceased's assets, pay debts and taxes, and distribute what remains to the beneficiaries. Abdi's mother had left everything to be split evenly between him and his younger brother Yusuf, a physiotherapist who lived several hours away and had little appetite for the paperwork side of things but strong opinions about how quickly the estate should close.

The estate was not complicated in the sense of having exotic assets, but it was substantial: a house, a non-registered investment account, a small rental property that needed to be sold, and a handful of accounts that had to be tracked down, valued, and closed. Altogether the estate was worth somewhere in the range of $1,600,000 to $2,000,000 once everything was accounted for. Abdi came to Treadstone Law at the outset mainly for help applying for probate, the court process that confirms the will is valid and that the named estate trustee has authority to act. He did not initially plan for how much of his own time the year ahead would consume, or how he would eventually ask to be paid for it.

The problem

Ontario law entitles an estate trustee to what is usually called executor compensation — a fee for the work of administering the estate, distinct from anything the trustee receives as a beneficiary. The trouble is that the law does not set a fixed rate. Courts and estate practice in Ontario have long used a rough guideline of roughly five percent of the value of the estate, split across receiving the assets, managing them, disbursing them, and overseeing any ongoing care, but that guideline is a starting point for negotiation or a court's discretion, not an entitlement Abdi could simply invoice for. And a will can also fix or limit compensation itself, or say nothing at all — Abdi's mother's will was silent on the point.

Over the year, Abdi had done a genuine volume of work: he obtained date-of-death valuations, filed the application for a certificate of appointment of estate trustee, dealt with the sale of the rental property including a tenant who did not want to leave, settled the final tax return, and fielded a steady stream of questions from Yusuf, who checked in often but contributed little of the actual labour. By the time the estate was ready to close, Abdi felt he had earned meaningful compensation for a year of evenings and weekends spent on something well outside his own profession. He also knew that if he simply took a fee and told Yusuf about it after the fact, it could look self-dealing — an estate trustee paying themselves without agreement is exactly the kind of thing that invites a beneficiary to demand a full accounting, or worse, bring the trustee before the Superior Court to have the compensation reviewed and potentially reduced.

What we did

1. Calculated compensation against the standard guideline, not a round number. We worked through the value of what Abdi had received into the estate, managed during the year, and ultimately paid out or transferred to the beneficiaries, and applied the customary percentage-based approach courts use as a reference point. That produced a specific, defensible figure rather than a number Abdi simply felt was fair, which made it much harder for Yusuf to dismiss as arbitrary.
2. Adjusted the figure down to reflect the actual complexity of the estate. The rough guideline is a starting point, not a formula courts apply mechanically — an estate trustee's fee is meant to reflect the real time, responsibility and skill the job required. Abdi's year involved real work but no litigation, no contested claims, and a relatively cooperative beneficiary, so we recommended a figure modestly below the top of the customary range rather than claiming the maximum simply because the estate's value allowed for it.
3. Prepared a plain-language accounting before raising compensation at all. Before proposing any fee, we set out for Yusuf exactly what the estate had contained, what had been paid out in debts, taxes and expenses, and what remained to be distributed. An estate trustee owes beneficiaries a duty to account for their administration of the estate, and beneficiaries who understand what actually happened over the year are far less likely to see a compensation request as opportunistic.
4. Presented the compensation request alongside the accounting, with the reasoning shown. Rather than stating a number, we set out how it had been calculated — the percentage applied, against which values, and why it sat where it did in the customary range — so Yusuf could see the logic rather than simply be told the answer. Beneficiaries who are shown the reasoning behind a figure are considerably more likely to sign off on it than beneficiaries asked to trust a conclusion.
5. Obtained Yusuf's written consent before any compensation was paid. Once Yusuf confirmed in writing that he accepted both the accounting and the proposed compensation, the estate paid Abdi's fee as part of the final distribution. That written consent meant there was no need to ask the Superior Court to formally pass the accounts and approve compensation — a process available to executors who cannot reach agreement with beneficiaries, but one that adds months and legal cost to an estate that was otherwise ready to close.

The outcome

Abdi's compensation came to roughly $70,000, calculated against an estate that settled at around $1,750,000 once the rental property sold and the final expenses were paid — a figure that sat below the top of the customary range once the relatively straightforward nature of the year was factored in. Yusuf raised a few questions about specific line items in the accounting, mostly around the rental property's sale costs, but accepted the compensation figure itself without pushing back once he saw how it had been calculated and against what.

The estate closed without either brother needing to involve the Superior Court to resolve a dispute over the fee, which is the outcome that mattered most. A contested passing of accounts — where a court reviews an estate trustee's administration and rules on compensation — can take many months and cost the estate a meaningful portion of its remaining value in legal fees on both sides, money that comes directly out of what the beneficiaries would otherwise receive. Abdi and Yusuf avoided that entirely, and the relationship between the two brothers, while never especially close, was not damaged by the process the way disputed estates so often damage families.

Abdi's own reflection, once the estate was wound up, was that the hardest part had not been the paperwork but not knowing, at the outset, whether asking to be paid for his year of work would be seen as reasonable or as taking advantage of his position. Having the compensation grounded in a documented calculation, shown openly rather than announced after the fact, was what made the difference.

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