Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the South Carolina T&E solo who knows Title 62 (South Carolina’s UPC-based Probate Code) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Healthy Connections (Community Choices) waiver posture, whether the latest South Carolina Bar ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Court of Appeals of South Carolina decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in South Carolina 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 South Carolina 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.
Act No. 26 of 2025 (H. 3472), signed by the Governor and effective May 8, 2025, raised the collection-by-affidavit, summary-administration, and exempt-property limits in S.C. Code §§ 62-3-1201/-1203/-1204 and 62-2-401 from $25,000 to $45,000 — widening the pool of estates that can skip full administration.
Re-screen every modest estate on intake: matters that would have required full administration under the old $25,000 line may now clear by affidavit or summary administration. Update your intake worksheets and exempt-property set-aside math to the $45,000 figure — a worksheet still carrying $25,000 will route estates into administration they no longer need.
S.C. Code §§ 62-3-1201 et seq.; Act No. 26 of 2025 (H. 3472) · SCSTATEHOUSE.GOV · H. 3472
This slot holds the week’s second South Carolina-specific development — a bill with a verifiable committee vote on the legislature’s site, a newly-issued ethics opinion, a state-bar section notice, or a Medicaid bulletin. The orchestrator populates it from primary sources, and the citation below carries the source URL so the reader can verify before using it with a client.
[Per-state why-it-matters paragraph lands here once the headline item is populated.]
[Primary-source citation with URL]
S.C. Code § 62-6-401 (2024 Act No. 200, H. 4234) authorizes transfer-on-death designations on vehicles, watercraft, and similarly titled personal property, effective July 1, 2025. Real-property TOD (beneficiary) deeds remain unavailable — South Carolina has not adopted URPTODA, and S. 49 to create one has sat in Senate Judiciary with no action since Jan. 14, 2025.
There is a new non-probate tool for titled personal property, but the homestead still cannot pass by beneficiary deed. To keep real property out of probate — and beyond SCDHHS estate recovery under § 43-7-460 — the revocable trust and joint-with-survivorship titling remain the operative instruments. Don’t let a client assume a TOD deed is available for the house.
S.C. Code § 62-6-401 (2024 Act No. 200) · SCSTATEHOUSE.GOV · Title 62, Ch. 6
Decisions that bind a South Carolina practitioner — South Carolina’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering South Carolina, including the U.S. 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. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
This lane reads each new opinion from South Carolina’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering South Carolina (Fourth Circuit) before anything 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. For this period’s trailing window, no new verified trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from those courts was identified in the sources reviewed.
Nothing to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority is unchanged. When the next verified T&E ruling issues, it lands here with the holding and the official cite.
Controlling authority unchanged · South Carolina appellate courts · U.S. Fourth Circuit.
This week in South Carolina for the T&E solo with SC Healthy Connections clients: the developments from the South Carolina Bar and SCDHHS (Healthy Connections 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.