Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Kansas T&E solo who knows the Kansas Probate Code (K.S.A. ch. 59) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead posture, the KanCare estate-recovery reach, whether the Kansas bar’s latest ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Kansas Court of Appeals decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Kansas 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 Kansas 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 Kansas Legislature’s bill record, HB 2590 creates the Kansas Community Property Trust Act, letting married settlors opt into community-property treatment for assets placed in a qualifying trust, alongside Kansas UTC amendments (grantor-trust reimbursement, designated representatives). It does not make Kansas a community-property state; the default remains common-law/separate property.
For a Kansas T&E solo, this is a new arrow in the quiver: assets in a properly structured community-property trust get a full basis step-up at the first spouse’s death, not just on the decedent’s half — valuable for highly-appreciated property. But the default regime is unchanged, so don’t let a client (or a national form) assume community-property treatment without the opt-in trust actually in place. Confirm the statute before you draft it.
Kansas Legislature · HB 2590 (2025–26) · KSLEGISLATURE.GOV
This slot holds the week’s second Kansas-specific development — a bill with a verifiable committee vote on the legislature’s record, a newly-issued Kansas bar ethics opinion, a Kansas bar section notice, or a Medicaid agency bulletin. The orchestrator populates it from primary sources and the tr-cite 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]
Per the Kansas Secretary of State’s session laws, HB 2359 enacts the Kansas Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship and Other Protective Arrangements Act (with UAGPPJA), emphasizing least-restrictive alternatives and recodifying the framework at new K.S.A. 59-30,101 et seq., effective January 1, 2026.
For a Kansas T&E solo who handles incapacity planning, this resets the petition forms, the standards, and the menu of protective arrangements you advise on — supported decision-making and limited orders now sit ahead of full guardianship in the analysis. Update your incapacity-planning intake and any guardianship templates to the new chapter before the next filing.
Kansas Secretary of State · 2025 Session Laws, Ch. 40 (HB 2359) · SOS.KS.GOV
Decisions that bind a Kansas practitioner — Kansas’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Kansas, including the U.S. 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.
This lane reads each new opinion from Kansas’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Kansas (Tenth 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 · Kansas appellate courts · U.S. Tenth Circuit.
This week in Kansas for the T&E solo with KanCare clients: the developments from the Kansas Bar Association (Real Estate, Probate & Trust Law Section) and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment / KanCare 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.