Nancy Sobin was a life-saver for my family. She started working for my parents in December 2021, when my Mother’s heath concerns and shaky hand made it difficult to keep up with the household’s administrative tasks. My Father always took care of the taxes, bills and record keeping until his late nineties, when these activities fell to my Mother. However, it became too much for her when she was ninety eight, and after interviewing several bookkeepers, she selected Ms. Sobin. I will note that my brothers both live in California and I live in Florida, and although we visited on a regular basis for a week or so at a time, we were not able to help with the day-to-day tasks.
Ms. Sobin visited my parents’ house every two weeks and kept all the financial information up to date, paying bills, writing checks, keeping track of dividends and donations, preparing all the information needed for the tax accountants and paying the taxes. She took care of the files, getting rid of old and outdated documents and shredding old checks. She also helped with related tasks such as purchasing stamps and envelopes since it was hard for my mother to leave the house. She took her to Bank of America with her aide when they insisted on her coming in to sign some documents in person.
After my father passed away in August 2022, Ms. Sobin visited the Surrogate’s Court for my mother with the documents needed for Mom to become executor. She prepared spreadsheets of all the assets and where in the process they were, working with all the agents from various banks, stocks and mutual funds, calculated RMDs and prepared all the forms that needed to be signed with notary or Medallion stamps for change of ownership. At the same time she was able to have my brothers and myself set up with Transfer on Death (TOD) orders so it would later be easier to distribute Mom’s estate. She also prepared the forms needed by the State of NJ Tax Department.
When my Mother passed away in February 2023, I became executor for both estates. Ms Sobin went thru all the same spreadsheets and tracking the assets for me, including one Mutual Fund left over from my Dad’s estate that had not been properly transferred to Mom before her death due to their agent’s deficiency! She arranged the change of ownership forms and shareholder request forms, more complex this time since the beneficiaries were not a spouse. The TOD orders that she set up made my job much easier. I was able to complete my executor duties with her assistance and Mom’s estate account was finally closed at the end of 2024.
In summary, her services were invaluable to my family during my parents’ lifetimes and after for me as executor.
Thank you!