Your state's pack. New issue every Monday. Bookmark it. I built this for the Arkansas T&E solo working Medicaid-planning and estate files in a non-UPC, dower-and-curtesy, constitutional-homestead state — with a beneficiary-deed statute and a brand-new community-property-at-death wrinkle. Every item carries a reachable citation.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments I think actually matter to an Arkansas T&E solo. Each has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each comes with a reachable citation so you can verify it yourself before you use it with a client.
Act 2023, No. 582 added the Uniform Community Property Disposition at Death Act at Ark. Code Title 28, Chapter 15, effective Aug. 1, 2023. Arkansas remains a common-law state during life, but it now has rules for community property that migrating couples bring into the state and how it disposes at death.
For an Arkansas solo with clients who moved from a community-property state (TX, etc.), this changes the character analysis at death — affecting the surviving spouse's rights and the basis/recovery picture. It is recent enough that many forms haven't caught up.
Ark. Code §§ 28-15-101 et seq. (Act 2023 No. 582) · law.justia.com
Ark. Code § 18-12-608 authorizes recorded beneficiary deeds that convey real property at the owner's death, subject to existing encumbrances, valid only if recorded before the owner's death. Practitioners treat it as functionally akin to an enhanced-life-estate transfer.
Because Arkansas runs an expanded estate-recovery program through DHS, keeping the home out of the recoverable estate matters — the § 18-12-608 deed is the cleanest tool, but confirm how DHS treats beneficiary-deed property before promising it avoids recovery.
Ark. Code § 18-12-608 (beneficiary deeds) · law.justia.com
Arkansas's homestead is constitutional (Art. 9): urban up to 1 acre / rural up to 160 acres (floor of one-quarter acre urban, 80 acres rural regardless of value), with a $2,500 value cap that the acreage floors effectively override. Dower and curtesy and statutory allowances also burden the net estate.
An Arkansas T&E solo administers around dower/curtesy and constitutional homestead that don't exist in UPC states — these reduce what's in the recoverable estate and what the surviving spouse takes. Generic UPC checklists miss them.
Ark. Const. art. 9; Ark. Code Title 28 · law.justia.com
This week in Arkansas for the T&E solo with Medicaid-planning clients: what the Arkansas Bar, county bars, and Arkansas DHS / ARChoices bulletins put in front of you — including the still-fresh Uniform Community Property Disposition at Death Act.
Why the weekly sift is worth it for an Arkansas solo: a non-UPC code with dower/curtesy, a constitutional homestead, and a 2023 community-property-at-death overlay make this one of the more idiosyncratic states for estate and Medicaid work.