Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the South Dakota T&E solo who knows SDCL Title 29A (the Uniform Probate Code) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the South Dakota Medicaid (DSS) waiver posture, whether the latest State Bar of South Dakota ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent South Dakota Supreme Court decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in South Dakota 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 Dakota 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.
The 2025 Trust Task Force bill, SB 69, passed the 2025 Legislature and was signed in March 2025, effective July 1, 2025. It adds a new ‘tax trust advisor’ role alongside the existing investment and distribution advisors and clarifies the decanting statute versus trust modification.
South Dakota’s trust code moves nearly every year through the Task Force pipeline, so directed-trust and decanting drafting has to track the current text. If you draft or administer SD situs trusts, confirm your advisor-role definitions and decanting provisions against the post-SB 69 statute — the ‘tax trust advisor’ role is new and your forms predate it.
S.D. SB 69 (2025 Sess.); SD Div. of Banking trust-legislation memo · DLR.SD.GOV · 2025 trust-legislation memo
This slot holds the week’s second South Dakota-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]
The 2025 Legislature amended SDCL § 43-45-3 to raise the one-year exemption on homestead sale proceeds from $60,000 to $100,000, with the $170,000 figure retained for a person 70 or older or an unremarried surviving spouse. The dwelling itself remains absolutely exempt with no value ceiling (SDCL ch. 43-31).
Pair the raise with South Dakota’s broad estate recovery under SDCL § 28-6-23 — which DSS can pursue against the estate of any recipient 55 or older — and the homestead’s exempt-but-recoverable status is the conversation to have on intake. Update creditor-exposure memos and client checklists still carrying the old $60,000 proceeds cap.
SDCL § 43-45-3 (SB 88, 2025 · SL 2025 ch. 185) · SDLEGISLATURE.GOV · SDCL ch. 43-45
Decisions that bind a South Dakota practitioner — South Dakota’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering South Dakota, including the U.S. Eighth 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.
A successful rancher presented his much-younger fiancée a prenuptial agreement — waiving her right to any share of his estate — the day before their wedding, and the parties signed it shortly before the ceremony. Eight years later, after his death, she petitioned for an elective share (SDCL 29A-2-201) and a family allowance (SDCL 29A-2-403), arguing she signed involuntarily and the agreement was unconscionable. The trial court granted the family allowance but denied the elective share, finding she signed voluntarily and the agreement was not unconscionable. The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed.
For South Dakota estate planning, a premarital waiver of elective-share rights holds up even when presented on the eve of the wedding, so long as the signing was voluntary and the terms were not unconscionable — timing and pressure are factors, not automatic invalidators. But a valid elective-share waiver does not necessarily waive the statutory family allowance, which the surviving spouse may still claim. Paper the voluntariness — independent review, disclosure, time to consider — when drafting, and read any waiver for what it does and does not give up.
In re Estate of Martin Allen Webb, 2026 S.D. 2 (S.D. Jan. 14, 2026) — South Dakota Supreme Court opinion.
This slot holds the next significant trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from South Dakota’s appellate courts or the federal courts covering South Dakota. 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 South Dakota for the T&E solo with South Dakota Medicaid clients: the developments from the State Bar of South Dakota and the SD Department of Social Services (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.