Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Arizona T&E solo working community-property estates and ALTCS files — a UPC state with a powerful beneficiary-deed statute, a narrow estate definition, and a real TEFRA-lien 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 Arizona 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.
Under A.R.S. § 33-405 a recorded beneficiary deed transfers the home at death outside probate, and Arizona defines its recoverable 'estate' narrowly (formal probate or small-estate affidavit only), so a beneficiary-deed home generally escapes estate recovery. But AHCCCS can still place a TEFRA lien on the real property of a recipient institutionalized 90+ days.
This is the central ALTCS planning nuance for an Arizona solo: the beneficiary deed solves estate recovery but not the lifetime TEFRA lien. Get both halves right or the family is surprised at sale or death.
A.R.S. § 33-405 + AHCCCS estate recovery (DE-810) · azleg.gov / azahcccs.gov
Arizona is a community-property state. Under § 33-405 a beneficiary deed can run to grantees as community property or community property with right of survivorship, and on co-owned survivorship property the last surviving owner must be among the signers or the transfer lapses.
Character of property (community vs. separate) drives both the CSRA computation and how you draft and sequence beneficiary deeds for a married couple. A common-law-state form will mis-title the deed.
A.R.S. § 33-405 (beneficiary deeds; community property) · azleg.gov
A.R.S. § 33-1101 sets the homestead exemption at a $400,000 base, adjusted annually for cost of living since Jan. 1, 2024 (per § 33-1101(D)). This is a creditor/bankruptcy exemption indexed by statute, with no Arizona Department of Revenue publication of the figure. Because no Arizona agency publishes the figure, the current-year indexed amount must be computed from the statute’s CPI formula each year — cite the statutory indexing mechanism, and confirm the current number before you use it rather than pasting a prior year’s figure into this year’s pleading. Note the separate § 14-2402 probate homestead allowance (a fixed $18,000).
Don't confuse the two homesteads: the § 33-1101 creditor-protection figure (indexed) is different from the § 14-2402 probate allowance. Cite the current indexed number when advising on equity protection.
A.R.S. § 33-1101(A), (D) (indexed homestead) · azleg.gov/ars/33/01101.htm
Decisions from the courts that bind an Arizona practitioner — the Supreme Court of Arizona and the Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for Arizona, and the Ninth Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
After the surviving settlor’s 2019 amendment stripped her children as beneficiaries and redirected the trust to a charity tied to the drafting attorney, an excluded child challenged the amendment as the product of that attorney’s undue influence. The successor co-trustees invoked the trust’s ADR clause — authorized by A.R.S. § 14-10205, which lets a trustor require beneficiaries to arbitrate disputes over “the administration or distribution of the trust” — and appointed a “Special Co-Trustee” to decide the amendment’s validity. The Court of Appeals held the ADR clause does not reach a challenge to the validity of an amendment: whether an amendment is void for undue influence is not a dispute over “administration or distribution.” Vacated and remanded for the court — not the special co-trustee — to decide validity.
Takeaways. One: a § 14-10205 ADR clause covers administration and distribution disputes — it does not bar a court challenge to the validity of the trust or an amendment (capacity, undue influence, fraud). Don’t counsel a fiduciary that an ADR clause keeps an undue-influence fight out of court. Two: when an amendment benefits the drafter or someone in a confidential relationship with an aged settlor, expect a validity challenge that survives ADR — paper independence and capacity at execution. Three: if a client truly wants validity questions resolved privately, § 14-10205 will not get them there; that remains a court question.
May v. May, No. 1 CA-CV 25-0392 PB (Ariz. Ct. App., Div. One Feb. 17, 2026) · official opinion — azcourts.gov
This week in Arizona for the T&E solo with Medicaid-planning clients: what the State Bar of Arizona, county bars, and AHCCCS / ALTCS publications put in front of you — from the indexed homestead figure to the beneficiary-deed-vs-TEFRA-lien interplay.
Why the weekly sift is worth it for an Arizona solo: community-property character and the beneficiary-deed/TEFRA-lien split make Arizona ALTCS planning distinctly local, and the indexed homestead figure changes every January.