Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Minnesota T&E solo who knows Chapter 524 cold but still loses an afternoon a week tracking the moving Medical Assistance pieces.
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 a Minnesota 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 Minn. Stat. § 256B.15, the recoverable estate includes the probate estate plus the recipient's interests in real property held as a life tenant or joint tenant, and property passing by a TOD deed under § 507.071.
This is the trap. A Minnesota client who relies on a TOD deed or joint tenancy to avoid probate has not escaped Medical Assistance recovery. The reliable shield here is a properly structured irrevocable trust, not a non-probate transfer.
Minnesota authorizes the transfer-on-death deed under § 507.071, yet § 256B.15 expressly captures the recipient's interest passing under that deed for Medical Assistance recovery.
Spell this out for clients: in Minnesota the TOD deed avoids probate but not estate recovery. Setting expectations here prevents a malpractice claim after the DHS lien lands.
Minn. Stat. § 507.071 · revisor.mn.gov; mn.gov/dhs
Maximum CSRA is $162,660 (minimum $32,532); Minnesota applies the higher $1,130,000 home-equity limit, not the $752,000 floor.
Two places this lands: community-spouse protection math and high-value-home clients. Flag the 2028 H.R. 1 flat $1,000,000 cap now — it will pull MN's limit down.
42 U.S.C. § 1396p · CMS 2026 Standards (medicaid.gov)
Decisions from the courts that bind a Minnesota practitioner — the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, and the Eighth 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.
The lane reads each new opinion from this state’s appellate courts and the federal courts that cover it, and reads-and-discards matters that are not trusts-and-estates (criminal, family-law, and commercial disputes — including cases where a trust or estate appears only as a party’s capacity, not as a T&E holding) and nonprecedential opinions that do not bind. For this period, no material precedential trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery ruling surfaced.
Nothing to re-paper from the bench this period; plan and draft against the controlling statutes and prior authority unchanged.
This week in Minnesota for the T&E solo with Medical Assistance-planning clients: what the MSBA Probate & Trust Law Section, the Legislature, and the DHS estate-recovery manual put in front of you.
The MSBA CLE calendar, the Probate & Trust Law Section, and the DHS bulletins all publish on different schedules. This is that sift, already done, with the link on each item.