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 several weeks 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
2026 S.C. Act No. 111 (S 146, the Senator Roger A. Nutt Act), signed and effective April 6, 2026, amends long-term-care residents’ rights so a resident may designate up to three visitors permitted to visit — with priority — during declared emergencies that restrict facility access; the list is updatable twice a year or as needed. Passed the House 110-0 and Senate 42-0.
Fold an essential-visitor designation into your LTC and incapacity-planning intake alongside the health-care POA — it is the pandemic-era access gap made statutory, and clients with a nursing-home placement will want the three names on file before the next declared emergency.
2026 S.C. Act No. 111 (S 146), signed & eff. Apr. 6, 2026 · scstatehouse.gov
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.
A father's trust gave his wife a testamentary power of appointment over trust property, exercisable in her own later will. A daughter sued the wife, arguing (1) a contract not to revoke, and (2) that the wife had impliedly promised — even by staying silent during family discussions of the succession plan — never to use the power to disturb the father's intended distribution of his company's voting shares. The circuit court granted summary judgment to the wife on both theories. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the contract claim (the statute governing contracts not to revoke a will requires a writing with material contract terms, which a standard residuary clause declining to exercise a power doesn't supply) but reversed on the constructive-trust claim: South Carolina's contract-to-revoke statute doesn't displace the separate equitable doctrine, which has never required a writing and can rest on an implied promise, even one made by silence, if the surrounding evidence creates a genuine fact question.
Two takeaways for drafting and litigating. First, a plain vanilla residuary clause that doesn't reference a granted power of appointment is not, by itself, evidence of any promise about how that power will later be used — if a client wants to lock in non-exercise, say so explicitly and get it in writing. Second, if you're litigating a family succession dispute, don't let a contract-to-revoke statute's writing requirement talk you out of a constructive-trust theory: silence at family meetings where the succession plan was openly discussed was enough here to survive summary judgment.
In the Matter of the Estate of Paul Brandon Barringer, II, Opinion No. 6156 (S.C. Ct. App. July 29, 2026).
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.