Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Montana T&E solo who knows the Uniform Probate Code (M.C.A. Title 72) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Montana Medicaid / the Big Sky Waiver posture, whether the latest opinion from the State Bar of Montana changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Montana Supreme Court decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Montana lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
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 Montana 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 Montana Department of Revenue, the 2025 Legislature (HB 231 and SB 542) restructured residential property taxation, adding a homestead component and a higher second-home rate phasing in for tax years 2025–2026. Clients must enroll for the reduced homestead rate between Dec. 1, 2025 and Mar. 1, 2026.
The new tiers turn on owner-occupied-homestead versus second-home status, and that occupancy and titling question intersects directly with how you draft revocable trusts, life estates, and joint-tenancy deeds. Pair a client-facing note on the enrollment deadline with a titling check so trust-held or jointly-held residences still capture the homestead rate.
Montana Department of Revenue · 2025 Property Tax Information · REVENUE.MT.GOV
Title 72 now publishes as the 2025 MCA, confirming the post-2025-session statutory text as current. The elective share is no longer at the repealed M.C.A. 72-2-221: it lives at M.C.A. 72-2-232 et seq. (the 1990-UPC augmented-estate scheme), giving the surviving spouse 50% of the marital-property portion of the augmented estate.
Any template or client file still citing 72-2-221 is citing a repealed section. Sweep the form library and re-point elective-share references to the 72-2-231 through 72-2-244 part before the next spousal-election matter forces the question.
Montana Code Annotated · Title 72 · MCA.LEGMT.GOV
DPHHS’s current long-term-care Medicaid parameters for 2026 govern this year’s eligibility and spend-down planning: a $2,000 individual asset limit, a community-spouse resource allowance up to the federal maximum of $162,660 (minimum $32,532), and a 60-month look-back.
Re-baseline any spend-down or asset-protection plan keyed to last year’s numbers. The estate-recovery reach under M.C.A. 53-6-167 into joint tenancy, life estates, and living trusts is exactly what the planning is built to anticipate, so confirm the figures before you commit a client to a path.
Montana DPHHS · Medicaid Changes · DPHHS.MT.GOV
Decisions that bind a Montana practitioner — Montana’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Montana, including the U.S. Ninth 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.
Bradley Haler died intestate, survived by his wife Rebecca (the personal representative) and a son from a prior marriage. About a month before his death he withdrew $80,000 and bought a cashier’s check payable to himself; it was never cashed, and no pay-on-death beneficiary was named on the source account. Rebecca, an authorized signer on that account, had the bank reissue the funds to her and the district court held they were her individual property. The Montana Supreme Court reversed: an authorized signer is an agent whose authority terminates at the owner’s death and who has no beneficial right to the funds (§§ 72-6-205(3), 72-6-211(4), MCA), so with no POD designation the proceeds fall into the intestate estate.
For Montana estate administration, an ‘authorized signer’ is an agent, not an owner — that authority dies with the account holder and confers no survivorship right absent a POD or beneficiary designation. A personal representative who also stands to inherit cannot treat such funds as her own; trace pre-death withdrawals and uncashed instruments into the inventory. Where a decedent leaves a spouse and a child of another relationship, the § 72-2-112(4) split governs (spouse’s first $150,000 plus half the balance) — confirm beneficiary designations before characterizing any account as non-probate.
In re Estate of Bradley James Haler, 2026 MT 111, No. DA 25-0818 (Mont. May 26, 2026) — Montana Supreme Court opinion.
This slot holds the next significant trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from Montana’s appellate courts or the federal courts covering Montana. The lane reads each opinion before it lands here, and reads-and-discards matters that aren’t trusts-and-estates — criminal, family, commercial/LLC fiduciary, tax, and cases where an estate or trust is only a party. When the trailing window has no further ruling, this row says so plainly rather than inventing one.
Nothing further to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority is otherwise unchanged.
This week in Montana for the T&E solo with Montana Medicaid clients: the developments from the State Bar of Montana and the Montana DPHHS (Medicaid) that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren’t indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.