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 several weeks 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
Signed by the Governor and enrolled, SB 100 adds a new section to chapter 55-1. Unless the governing instrument expressly forbids reimbursement, where the trustor is treated as owner under IRC §§ 671–678, a trustee — but not a trustee who is the trustor, and not a related or subordinate party within IRC § 672(c) — may in sole discretion, or at the direction or with the consent of a trust advisor or trust protector who is likewise not the trustor or a related or subordinate party, pay the tax directly to the taxing authority or reimburse the person liable. Four guardrails ride with it. If the trust holds a policy on the trustor’s life, neither the policy’s cash value nor the proceeds of a loan secured by it may fund the reimbursement. Exercising the power, or deciding to exercise it in the trustor’s favor, may not cause the trustor to be treated as a beneficiary for purposes of § 55-1-36.1 or any other South Dakota law. The section does not apply where applying it would disqualify or reduce a marital or charitable deduction for state or federal income, gift, or estate tax purposes. And a trustee, trust advisor, or trust protector is not liable to anyone for exercising, directing, consenting to, or declining the power, and doing so is not a breach of fiduciary duty.
Grantor-trust tax reimbursement is one of the genuinely hard conversations in this practice: the trustor owes income tax on trust income they may never receive, and a reimbursement power has long been shadowed by the worry that it hands creditors an argument that the trustor is really a beneficiary. This statute answers that directly for South Dakota situs by decoupling the power from § 55-1-36.1, which is the provision most out-of-state planners come to South Dakota for. Three drafting consequences. Because the power is now a DEFAULT, review existing instruments: if a client does not want reimbursement available, the instrument must expressly say so. Watch who holds it — a trustor-trustee or a related-or-subordinate party under § 672(c) cannot exercise it, so check your trustee and protector appointments against that definition. And note the insurance carve-out before funding an ILIT reimbursement from policy cash value, which the section forbids. Read the enrolled act itself before relying on a specific operative date: it was signed and enrolled this session, and I did not see an emergency clause, so confirm the effective date against the session-law chapter rather than assuming.
S.D. SB 100 (2026), “An Act to revise provisions related to trusts” — enrolled; listed on the Legislature’s 2026 Bills Signed By The Governor report · SDLEGISLATURE.GOV · 2026 SB 100
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.
Parents who farmed roughly 1,000 acres formed a corporation in 2002 to hold the farm assets and a living trust in 2011, contributing most of their property including the corporate shares; the trust contemplated that each of their five children would receive a specified portion of land, and a 2022 amendment allegedly named one son primary beneficiary and successor co-trustee. The mother then sued the father, claiming he had assigned her shares out of the trust to himself, and died shortly after filing; the father was appointed special administrator without notice to heirs, and the son’s attempts to displace him failed on waiver grounds. The son brought this action against the father’s co-defendant purchaser and the trust, seeking declaratory relief, rescission of a land sale, and tort damages — naming himself, the mother’s estate, the corporation, and his own cattle company as plaintiffs, and claiming to act for the trust’s benefit. The estate and the corporation appeared through separate counsel and challenged his authority to sue in their names. The Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment against him on that ground and on rescission, since he was not a party to the sale, and affirmed the denial of further discovery — but vacated in part the orders denying leave to amend, denying a Rule 35(a) examination of his father, and denying attorney fees.
The thing to take from this is a pleading discipline, not a doctrine. A beneficiary who believes the fiduciary is looting the trust cannot cure his standing problem by listing the entities on the caption; the estate and the corporation have their own counsel and their own voice, and here they used it against him. The correct vehicles are the ones he kept losing on procedural grounds — timely petition to remove the fiduciary, objection preserved on the record, a derivative or beneficiary action brought in his own name on a theory that belongs to him. Note the waiver trap especially: he raised the lack of notice and hearing on the special-administrator appointment only after first objecting on conflict grounds alone, and the court held the procedural objection waived. Raise every ground the first time. The partial vacatur is the consolation — leave to amend and the Rule 35(a) examination are back in play on remand.
Estate of Paul O’Farrell, individually and as a beneficiary of the family trust; Skyline Cattle Company v. Grand Valley Hutterian Brethren, Inc., 2026 S.D. 44, No. 31101 (S.D. July 9, 2026) — affirmed in part, vacated in part.
The court resolved consolidated appeals between a family trust and an estate over entitlement to the decedent’s business interests, drawing the line between trust property and probate assets.
Funding discipline is the takeaway — when business interests are meant to sit in trust, paper the transfer completely, or the estate fight lands at the Supreme Court.
2026 S.D. 42 (S.D. July 1, 2026) (Nos. 31100, 31144)
The Supreme Court decided an estate’s claims involving a Hutterite colony counterparty — the second T&E decision from the court in nine days.
Two Supreme Court estate decisions in one window is rare for South Dakota — read both before your next probate-litigation strategy call; the court is speaking to estate-claim mechanics right now.
2026 S.D. 44 (S.D. July 9, 2026) (No. 31101)
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.