Your state's pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Utah T&E solo who knows the UPC cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, New Choices Waiver slot posture, or whether the latest EAOC opinion changes how you scope an engagement. What's below is what mattered in Utah 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 from the last seven days that I think actually matter to a Utah T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
Per the DHHS New Choices Waiver fact sheet, the program "serves a limited number of individuals" and "the majority of available waiver slots are reserved for people residing in nursing facilities, hospitals, or other medical facilities." Applicants may apply "until the waiver participant cap is met." This is the structural posture, not a weekly event — and it governs how you order a Medicaid plan around NCW eligibility.
For a Utah solo, the planning implication is timing and setting, not just eligibility math. A client already at home, already on another Utah waiver, or not yet institutionalized is competing for the minority share of slots against a prioritized queue. If a client's plan is "wait until they need it," the slot may not be there the week they need it. The practical posture is scenario-planning two paths — NCW availability and a fallback without it — before the facility decision forces your hand.
Utah DHHS New Choices Waiver Fact Sheet · medicaid.utah.gov/ltc-2/nc/
HB 181 (2026 General Session), the Uniform Estate Planning Amendments enacting the Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act, was signed by Governor Cox and took effect May 6, 2026. It authorizes valid electronic execution and remote notarization of non-testamentary estate-planning instruments — powers of attorney, revocable and irrevocable trusts, health-care directives — building on Utah’s 2020 adoption of the Uniform Electronic Wills Act, which already covered wills.
It closes the gap that forced a hybrid signing — e-wills under the 2020 act, wet-ink for everything else. Trusts, POAs, and advance directives in a Medicaid plan can now be executed electronically, which matters most for a homebound or facility-bound client where getting a notary to the bedside was the bottleneck. Confirm your e-notary platform and execution checklist track the new statute before you rely on it for a client signing.
Utah HB 181 (2026 GS) · Uniform Estate Planning Amendments / Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act · le.utah.gov · effective May 6, 2026
Under Utah Code § 78B-5-503(6), the Office of the State Auditor — not the Judicial Council, not DHHS — computes the homestead adjustment using the CPI formula in the statute and publishes the new figures no later than January 1 of the applicable calendar year. The 2026 figures took effect January 1. The 2025 amount on bar-association forms and most CLE slide decks circulating in the first quarter is stale.
Two places this bites immediately: creditor-exemption schedules filed in Utah bankruptcy cases, and the homestead-allowance math in § 75-2-402 family-protection claims. If your forms library was refreshed before the adjustment, every pleading out of it this year is citing last year's number. The fix is fifteen minutes in the template — but only if someone noticed.
Utah Code § 78B-5-503(6) · Office of the State Auditor · auditor.utah.gov · effective Jan 1, 2026
Decisions from the courts that bind a Utah practitioner — the Utah Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court for Utah, and the Tenth 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.
Five siblings fought over a family trust. At 96 and recovering from a fall, the settlor signed a “Final Trust” dividing the property equally among her children — undoing an earlier amendment that had given one son the whole parcel. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed for the trustee on every point: the settlor had testamentary capacity; although a confidential relationship existed between her and the trustee-daughter who benefited, the daughter rebutted the presumption of undue influence; and a no-contest (in terrorem) provision the settlor never requested — and that was never read to her — was properly reformed out of the trust.
Three things to carry into your files. One: when a beneficiary in a confidential relationship helps procure an amendment, expect the undue-influence presumption — and build the rebuttal the way the prevailing trustee did here (the settlor initiates the change, the terms are read aloud, the record shows independent will). Two: a no-contest clause sticks only if it reflects the settlor’s actual intent — here it was excised because she never asked for it and it was never read to her, so paper the settlor’s specific instruction to include one. Three: preserve the record — the appellant’s missing transcripts let the court “presume regularity” and sank his arguments on appeal.
Brown v. Amidan, 2025 UT App 144 (Utah Ct. App. Oct. 9, 2025) · official opinion — utcourts.gov
This week in Utah for the T&E solo with Aging / New Choices clients: what the Utah state bar and the Utah Medicaid agency put in front of you.
The Utah state bar's CLE and ethics-opinion feed and the Utah Medicaid agency's provider bulletins publish on different schedules. This is that sift, already done, with the link on each item.