Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the New Jersey T&E solo who knows Title 3B cold but still loses an afternoon a week tracking the moving Medicaid pieces — especially DMAHS's expanded recovery and the fact that there is no TOD deed and no state homestead to fall back on.
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 New Jersey 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.
DMAHS recovery reaches assets that bypass probate — jointly owned real estate and accounts, life insurance, retirement and pension benefits — per N.J.A.C. 10:49-14.1 and the Med-Comm guidance.
This is the structural fact a New Jersey Medicaid plan is built around. Survivorship and POD titling do not defeat recovery; an irrevocable structure outside the look-back does.
N.J.A.C. 10:49-14.1; N.J.S.A. 30:4D-7.2 · law.cornell.edu
Title 3B does not authorize a transfer-on-death deed for real property; New Jersey also has no state homestead exemption (debtors may elect federal exemptions; tenancy by the entirety remains the practical shield).
Two defaults a NJ solo must plan around: use a revocable trust or tenancy-by-the-entirety to manage the home, not a TOD deed, and do not promise homestead protection that does not exist.
N.J.S.A. Title 3B · law.justia.com / njleg.state.nj.us
Maximum CSRA is $162,660 (minimum $32,532); New Jersey applies the higher $1,130,000 home-equity limit.
Two places this lands: community-spouse protection math and high-value-home clients. Flag the OBBBA flat $1,000,000 cap (eff. Jan 1, 2028), which will pull the NJ limit down.
42 U.S.C. § 1396p · CMS 2026 Standards (medicaid.gov)
Decisions from the courts that bind a New Jersey practitioner — the Supreme Court of New Jersey and the Appellate Division of the Superior Court (and the Chancery Division, Probate Part), the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, and the Third 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). For this period, no material 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 New Jersey for the T&E solo with Medicaid-planning clients: what the NJ State Bar, DMAHS Medicaid Communications, and CMS put in front of you.
The bar CLE calendar, the DMAHS Med-Comms, and the federal standards all publish on different schedules. This is that sift, already done, with the link on each item.