Your state's pack. New issue every Monday. Bookmark it. I built this for the Utah T&E solo who knows the UPC cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, New Choices Waiver slot posture, or whether the latest EAOC opinion changes how you scope an engagement. What's below is what mattered in Utah this week.
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 from the last seven days that I think actually matter to a Utah T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
Per the DHHS New Choices Waiver fact sheet, the program "serves a limited number of individuals" and "the majority of available waiver slots are reserved for people residing in nursing facilities, hospitals, or other medical facilities." Applicants may apply "until the waiver participant cap is met." This is the structural posture, not a weekly event — and it governs how you order a Medicaid plan around NCW eligibility.
For a Utah solo, the planning implication is timing and setting, not just eligibility math. A client already at home, already on another Utah waiver, or not yet institutionalized is competing for the minority share of slots against a prioritized queue. If a client's plan is "wait until they need it," the slot may not be there the week they need it. The practical posture is scenario-planning two paths — NCW availability and a fallback without it — before the facility decision forces your hand.
Utah DHHS New Choices Waiver Fact Sheet · medicaid.utah.gov/ltc-2/nc/
HB 181 (2026 General Session), the Uniform Estate Planning Amendments enacting the Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act, was signed by Governor Cox and took effect May 6, 2026. It authorizes valid electronic execution and remote notarization of non-testamentary estate-planning instruments — powers of attorney, revocable and irrevocable trusts, health-care directives — building on Utah’s 2020 adoption of the Uniform Electronic Wills Act, which already covered wills.
It closes the gap that forced a hybrid signing — e-wills under the 2020 act, wet-ink for everything else. Trusts, POAs, and advance directives in a Medicaid plan can now be executed electronically, which matters most for a homebound or facility-bound client where getting a notary to the bedside was the bottleneck. Confirm your e-notary platform and execution checklist track the new statute before you rely on it for a client signing.
Utah HB 181 (2026 GS) · Uniform Estate Planning Amendments / Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act · le.utah.gov · effective May 6, 2026
Under Utah Code § 78B-5-503(6), the Office of the State Auditor — not the Judicial Council, not DHHS — computes the homestead adjustment using the CPI formula in the statute and publishes the new figures no later than January 1 of the applicable calendar year. The 2026 figures took effect January 1. The 2025 amount on bar-association forms and most CLE slide decks circulating in the first quarter is stale.
Two places this bites immediately: creditor-exemption schedules filed in Utah bankruptcy cases, and the homestead-allowance math in § 75-2-402 family-protection claims. If your forms library was refreshed before the adjustment, every pleading out of it this year is citing last year's number. The fix is fifteen minutes in the template — but only if someone noticed.
Utah Code § 78B-5-503(6) · Office of the State Auditor · auditor.utah.gov · effective Jan 1, 2026
This week in Utah for the T&E solo with Medicaid-planning clients: what the Utah State Bar, the local bars in your area, and the Utah DHHS Medicaid bulletins actually put in front of you. Upcoming CLEs worth the seat, recorded CLEs worth the watch, Estate Planning and Elder Law Section notices that changed a filing or a form, ethics opinions from the Office of Professional Conduct a solo should have read, and Medicaid-agency rate or waiver notices that quietly moved the eligibility or estate-recovery math. Filtered for practitioners doing eligibility and estate-recovery planning — Special / Supplemental Needs Trusts, Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts, community-spouse protection, TOD and life-estate deeds — for real clients. No litigation-only content, no corporate programming that got cross-posted.
The Utah State Bar CLE calendar, the Estate Planning and Elder Law Section listservs, the Salt Lake County and Utah County bar notices, the Office of Professional Conduct opinions, and the DHHS Medicaid provider bulletins all publish on different schedules and almost none of it is indexed by practice-focus. A Utah T&E solo doing eligibility and estate-recovery planning spends half an hour a week sifting to find the three items that actually touch the vehicles they draft — Special / Supplemental Needs Trusts, MAPTs, community-spouse protection, TOD and life-estate deeds. This is that sift, already done, with the registration or watch link on each item. Half an hour a week, every week, adds up to a working day every quarter. You get it back.