You are very right, Dave.  The most important thing an experienced abstractor brings to the table is the ability to understand the effect that each of the documents we find has on the title.  Years ago, when abstractors produced real abstracts of title, the job was more of a "search and find" mission.  All of the documents that appeared in a chain were shown and an attorney, or title examiner, would determine what the affect was on the title.  Today, however, abstractors are only asked to show relevant information and clients expect defects to be pointed out to them.  This necessarily requires the abstractor to know more about the legal effects of the documents and perform some of the examining function.

This important distinction has been lost somewhere along the way.  Too many "abstractors" don't realize there is more to abstracting than simply writing down deed and mortgage information on a form.  Worse yet, too many clients don't understand the complexities of what they are asking their abstractors to do and they don't realize that many searchers are not qualified to do it.

Oh So True Dave.  I once did some work in Florida (from here in OH) and had a case where there was a divorce.  Upon review we found the wife kept the property and the husband was to quit claim it to her, which he did.  But, on the very last page of an extremely long quit claim deed he reserved himself a nice big interest in the property.  If I recall correctly it was some sort of transfer on death of the ex-spouse.  In 15 years I have never seen that before or after.  Quite bold of the guy but hey, nobody noticed until I got my hands on it. 

The examiners we used in Fl only provided the copies and the search form showing the search and chain, etc.  If we had not read the deed we would have never have seen it as there was no notation of it.  I wish I could have stuck around to see how it was handled but alas it was a "temp" title commt. typist job and I moved on. 

But, it just proves your point that one must read the recorded docs and make an educated decision as to the next move wether it be fixing it or not.  I am not sure that should be up to the abstractor but I use the best in town (Doug and Rob) so I never have to worry that much.  Whenever I get a chance I review everythig, even the closed case dockets.  In the end it pays to be proactive - read everything as knowledge is the key!!

Years ago I worked as a title agent for a company doing work here in Ohio.  I memo came down from the "powers that be".  We were to add to our order request a line that had to be answered by the searcher.  "Did you read the Deed?"  At this time most of our abstractors were experienced abstractors, and most were employees.  The "independent abstractor" was just emerging.  Now most of my abstractors & I included thought , "What a stupid question, of course we read the deed!!"  The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that, there must have been an instance or instances where something was missed because someone didn't "read the deed".   I can think of several things that are put in the body of the deed that could slip by if you are not careful--life estates, partial interests, assumed mortgages, just to name a few. 

Sadly, it has gotten worse, as Robert pointed out, not only do we have information gatherers, instead of abstractors, we have inexperienced clerks or worse yet someone from India or another country, sitting with a checklist in front of them, "examining " the search. 

I sincerely hope that we can come back to a point where all involved in this industry, view their work as Dave suggests as a "Collection of Contracts" , and as a valuable service to the consumer, instead of a quick & easy way to make some money!!

Yes, it is a sad state of affairs when you have to rely on the wits of others, especially the clerks.  Things are missed everyday because of laziness or another one of my favs - "I thought she/he looked at it" or "its not my job". 

There used to be a time when the Recorder would check the docs.  Back in the day the recorder would not accept documents that were not completed correctly, now it is just another number to be scanned.

How many times do you see a deed that has no prior deed reference or marital status?  We see that all the time, almost daily when we had orders our our ears.  It seems to be the same title co's that make this mistake too.  I will bet an attorney never even reviewed those deeds.   

Standards have gone so far down hill it is pathetic.  Just last night I was amazed at how much children have changed....they are so bold now.  When I was a kid you didn't ask for money and if you actually worked up enough courage and were told no you walked away and in no way did you beg or back talk for you knew what would come next.....grounding or worse.  Yet another standard that has slipped - discipline, not abuse but discipline.....where or where did you go?????

As a former abstrator and exmaminer and current clerk in the Register of Deeds office...I feel the need to say, "Don't blame the RoD for the laziness/ignorance of the searchers."   I know that there are offices that are not helpful to the point of being rude, but I also know that our hands our tied, if the document meets the recording statutes, we HAVE to record it, and you wouldn't believe the garbage we have coming into our office prepared by attorneys and TITLE companies, not to mention the items individuals prepare themselves.  But we CANNOT reject it, even if we know it's no good, if it meets the statutes we must get it of record. 

There are searchers that come in here and do NOT read the documents and just write down what we index.  Any good searcher knows that  they must pull and read ALL documents, unfortunately, I don't believe the new searchers are being properly trained, they don't seem to understand what many COMMON documents are, much less the language included.