Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. Built for the New York T&E solo who knows the EPTL cold but still loses an afternoon tracking the moving Medicaid pieces — the community-care look-back that keeps getting delayed, the pooled-income trust, the spend-down math. What's below is what mattered in New York 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 I think actually matter to a New York T&E solo. Each comes with a reachable citation so you can verify it yourself before you use it with a client.
New York's statutorily-authorized 30-month transfer look-back for community-based long-term care (home care, personal care, CDPAP, assisted living) has been delayed repeatedly since 2020 and, per the most recent guidance, is still not being applied in practice as of 2026. Community Medicaid applications currently face no functioning transfer look-back.
For a New York solo this is the single most important planning window in the practice — and it is still open. Transfers for community-care planning currently escape a look-back that institutional Medicaid (60 months) already applies. Plan as if it could switch on with little notice: move now, document contemporaneously, and tell clients the window is a gift that may close.
N.Y. State DOH MRT 30-month look-back · health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/redesign/mrt2/proposals/30-month_lookback-final.htm · status update: nytrustlaw.com (Jan 2026)
Unlike income-cap states, New York uses a medically-needy spend-down: an applicant over the income limit can still qualify by spending down, and for community Medicaid the standard tool to shelter surplus monthly income is a pooled-income trust administered by a non-profit, authorized under federal and state law.
For a New York solo the machinery is genuinely different from the Sun Belt income-cap states — do not reach for a Miller trust here. The pooled-income trust is the income tool, and getting a client enrolled and funded is the recurring community-Medicaid task. Build the enrollment steps into the intake.
N.Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 366 · 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(4)(C) · medicaidplanningassistance.org/medicaid-eligibility-new-york
New York recovers Medicaid costs only against the probate estate, so assets that pass outside probate (a funded trust, beneficiary designations) generally fall outside recovery. On the home, New York is one of the states that elected the higher 2026 home-equity limit of $1,130,000 rather than the $752,000 federal floor.
Two reads for a New York solo: non-probate transfer is recovery-avoidance, so a funded trust does double duty; and for high-value downstate homes, New York's $1.13M equity election keeps far more homes inside the exemption than the federal floor would. Flag both in any plan that leans on the residence.
42 U.S.C. § 1396p(b) · 2026 home-equity election: CMS 2026 SSI & Spousal Impoverishment Standards (medicaid.gov)
Decisions that bind a New York practitioner — the Court of Appeals, the Appellate Division, and the Surrogate’s Courts, plus the federal courts that cover the state (the Southern, Eastern, Northern, and Western Districts of New York and the Second 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.
In 2022 Joseph DePonceau deeded his home to his grandson Andrew, reserving a life estate and a limited power of appointment to redirect the remainder among Joseph’s issue — the life-estate-with-retained-limited-power deed familiar from Medicaid planning, which removes the home from the grantor’s probate estate while leaving him a will-like power to change who ultimately takes. In June 2024 Andrew shot and killed Joseph and, hours later, himself. The estate’s executors petitioned (SCPA 1902/2103/2107) to forfeit Andrew’s remainder under the slayer rule of Riggs v. Palmer (115 N.Y. 506) so the property would revert to the estate, and moved for summary judgment. The Surrogate (Ciaccio, S.) denied the motion. First, the estate failed to carry its burden to prove Andrew was a “wrongdoer”: forfeiture is not automatic, a criminal conviction is not required but the manner of the killing matters (intentional murder/voluntary manslaughter forfeits; criminally negligent homicide, involuntary acts, or a killing not criminally responsible by reason of mental disease do not), and the only “proof” offered — a newspaper account and the executors’ own unsworn assertion that Andrew acted “purposely” — was not admissible evidence. Second, and as a matter of first impression, even assuming Andrew was a wrongdoer the court would not forfeit on these facts: under EPTL 6-5.2 an unexecuted power of appointment does not prevent a future estate from vesting, so Andrew’s remainder was vested — and New York has never applied Riggs to forfeit a vested property interest (Matter of Covert, 97 N.Y.2d 68), with Civil Rights Law § 79-b cutting against proprietary forfeiture. The Riggs principle turns on a killing committed to accelerate or seize a benefit; here nothing suggested Andrew killed for personal gain (he was “no Elmer Palmer” and took his own life within hours).
Three things to carry into your files. One: the life-estate-plus-retained-limited-power-of-appointment deed — a workhorse of New York Medicaid planning — gives the remainderman a vested future interest under EPTL 6-5.2 even though the grantor can still redirect it; that vesting is what shields it from a slayer-rule forfeiture, but it also means the remainderman holds real ownership incidents (a right to inspect for and prevent waste, exposure to taxes, the ability to convey subject to the life estate), which the deed should anticipate. Two: for the estate litigator, a Riggs forfeiture is fact-specific, not a bright-line rule: the party seeking forfeiture bears the burden, must put in admissible evidence of an intentional, gain-motivated killing (newspaper articles and unverified petition allegations will not do), and should expect the Surrogate to demand a hearing on the killer’s mental state and motive rather than infer wrongdoing from the bare fact of a death. Three: the opinion squarely flags that a vested remainder created by such a deed sits closer to true ownership than a will bequest for forfeiture purposes — a planning advantage worth understanding, and a litigation hurdle worth pricing in before promising a client the property “reverts” because the remainderman did something terrible.
Matter of DePonceau, 2026 NY Slip Op 26016, File No. 2024-1987/C (Sur. Ct., Monroe County Jan. 23, 2026) (published) · official opinion — nycourts.gov
This week in New York for the T&E solo with New York Medicaid clients: what the New York State Bar Association (Trusts and Estates Law Section) and the NY State Department of Health (Medicaid) put in front of you.
The NYSBA's section/CLE feed and the NY Medicaid feed publish on different schedules. This is that sift, already done, with the link on each item.