Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the South Carolina T&E solo who knows the Probate Code cold but still loses an afternoon a week tracking the moving Healthy Connections 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 South Carolina 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 S.C. Code Ann. § 43-7-460, SCDHHS files a claim in the probate estate of a recipient who was 55+ (or any age in an institution at death); recovery is deferred for a surviving spouse or a child under 21 or blind/disabled, and SCDHHS pursues estates over $25,000 with claims over $500.
This is the structural fact a SC Medicaid plan is built around. A funded living trust keeps the home out of the probate estate the State reaches; the trap is the unfunded trust.
S.C. Code Ann. § 43-7-460 · scstatehouse.gov · scdhhs.gov/estate-recovery
A 2024 law added TOD for titled personal property, but the real-property TOD bill (2025–2026 S 49, proposing Code § 27-1-80) was not enacted as of this issue. SC real estate still passes by deed, survivorship, trust, or probate.
Don’t reach for a TOD/beneficiary deed for SC real estate — it doesn’t exist yet. Lady Bird (enhanced life estate) deeds and trust funding are the workhorses; watch S 49.
S.C. 2025–2026 S 49 (pending) · scstatehouse.gov/sess126_2025-2026/bills/49.htm
Maximum CSRA is $162,660 (minimum $32,532); the 300%-FBR institutional income cap is $2,982/mo; South Carolina applies the lower $752,000 home-equity limit.
Two places this lands: community-spouse protection math and Community Choices waiver applicants near the income/equity lines. Flag the OBBBA flat $1,000,000 equity cap (eff. Jan 1, 2028) now.
42 U.S.C. § 1396p · CMS 2026 Standards (medicaid.gov)
Decisions from the courts that bind a South Carolina practitioner — the Supreme Court of South Carolina and the South Carolina Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, and the Fourth 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 South Carolina for the T&E solo with Medicaid-planning clients: what the SC Bar, the Probate Courts, and SCDHHS bulletins put in front of you.
The SC Bar CLE calendar, the Probate, Estate Planning & Trust Section, and the SCDHHS notices all publish on different schedules. This is that sift, already done, with the link on each item.