North Dakota adopted the uniform fee rule and did not add factors to it
North Dakota’s compensation provision, N.D.C.C. § 30.1-18-19, carries the uniform section number 3-719 in brackets in the published code, and its text is the uniform text with the pronouns made gender-neutral: reasonable compensation for services, a right to renounce a will’s compensation provision before qualifying where no contract with the decedent covers it, a right to renounce all or part of the fee, and a written renunciation that may be filed with the court.
What North Dakota did not do is as informative as what it did. Unlike Nebraska, which enumerated seven statutory guides in § 30-2482(2), and unlike Minnesota, which directs the court to three factors in § 524.3-719(b), the North Dakota code fixes no factors and publishes no percentage schedule. There is no statutory number to apply and no statutory checklist to work through.
So a North Dakota fee question is answered by the record rather than by the code: what the will says, what the estate actually required, and what the court will approve on the accounting. Asking the receiving court whether it has a local rule or standing practice on fiduciary fees is a more productive first step here than reading the statute, because the statute has already said everything it is going to say.
The real constraint sits two sections later. Under § 30.1-18-21 the court may review, after notice to all interested persons or on the petition of one, the propriety of employing any person — "including any attorney, auditor, investment adviser, or other specialized agent or assistant" — the reasonableness of that person’s compensation, and "the reasonableness of the compensation determined by the personal representative for that person’s own services, including services rendered as attorney." A representative who is also the estate’s lawyer is reviewable on both hats.
That section also imposes a writing requirement North Dakota does not repeat elsewhere: "If the amount of attorney’s fees is based upon the value of the decedent’s estate, the fee agreement must be in writing and mailed to all parties who are heirs of the estate pursuant to the last will and testament of the decedent," with notice to all heirs under chapter 30.1-03 where the decedent died intestate. A percentage-of-estate fee arrangement that was never put in writing and circulated is out of compliance before its reasonableness is even argued.
The remedy is explicit and runs backwards: "Any person who has received excessive compensation from an estate for services rendered may be ordered to make appropriate refunds." Taking a fee is therefore not the end of the question in North Dakota. The offsetting protection is § 30.1-18-20, under which a representative who defends or prosecutes a proceeding in good faith — "whether successful or not" — is entitled to necessary expenses and disbursements from the estate, including reasonable attorney’s fees.
Source: N.D.C.C. § 30.1-18-19 (UPC 3-719), 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.