I have seen situations like this before where someone hires an “estate company” to help with a probate. If it is like the other companies I have seen, I assume there are no attorneys there. Unfortunately, your money would be better spent on having an attorney help you.
Whether you have to pay the company is going to depend on your contract with the company and several other factors. On the one hand, you may have a contractual duty to pay no matter what. On the other hand, if the company breached that contract or owed you some other duty that they breached, you may have a good argument that they are not owed payment. You really should have an attorney look over your contract for you to see what your obligations are.
Douglas N. Kiger, Attorney at Law
Blado Kiger Bolan, Tacoma, Wash