Is a 6 percent oversight fee normal in Maricopa County, or is that number being tested to see what a buyer will absorb?
That fee is not normal. Statutory attorney fees in Arizona probate come out of the estate. They are not layered onto a buyer on top of everything else. A number like that floated at a buyer in Maricopa County usually evaporates the moment the buyer says no and starts walking toward the door.
Walked away from a Glendale probate in 2022 over a 4 percent add-on, found a different deal in 60 days.
A counter at 1.5 percent usually gets taken.
Demand a flat hourly cap with a hard ceiling, maybe $3,500 max.
Six percent of gross on the buyer's side is wild, and it is not a statutory fee structure that exists in Maricopa. Arizona probate attorney fees are supposed to be reasonable under ARS 14-3721, and reasonable in Phoenix courts has been landing closer to 1 to 2 percent of the estate's total value rather than something carved out of your purchase price specifically. The fact that he is framing it as "overseeing your purchase" is the tell, because that is not a defined role in the transaction. That is language designed to obscure what he is actually billing for. Ask him to put in writing exactly what court filings or hearings that 6 percent covers, because if the answer is vague, you have your answer.
Maricopa statutory attorney fees run closer to 3 percent of the estate value rather than of the sale price.
The part nobody has asked yet: is the estate actually insolvent, or close to it? In Phoenix, attorneys tend to lean on that 6% framing specifically when the estate has debts that eat into net proceeds. They are trying to make the gross sale price do more work than it should. That is a totally different conversation than a clean estate with equity to spare. Across probate SFRs in Maricopa, the files where that inflated fee shows up almost always have a lien or a creditor claim sitting somewhere in them. The other thing to know before negotiating anything: who actually hired this attorney. If the personal representative hired them independently rather than the court appointing them, that attorney's leverage over you as the buyer is basically zero. The estate is their client, and you are a third party to that engagement. The usual way this plays out is that the buyer asks for the engagement letter, makes clear they are not signing anything that makes them responsible for the attorney's fee structure, and the number drops fast. What does your purchase contract say about who is responsible for attorney fees on the seller side?
That phrasing "oversee my purchase" is doing a lot of work. Attorneys get paid to represent the estate, not to babysit you closing the deal. I would want to see the actual engagement letter before I even countered, because sometimes that language is a hook to bill hourly on top of the percentage once escrow gets complicated.
