There really aren't too many easy current owner searches any more. Most of the "current owners" we get are the ones that someone couldn't do online because they go back before the computer - which means pulling books and making copies the hard way. 

Also, I agree that it is a time saver for the searchers that aren't writing up their searches.  But, if we are at the point where a bunch of copies constitutes an acceptable "title search" it is no wonder nobody wants to pay a reasonable price for a search any more.  I consider that a sad state of affairs in the industry.

For us, it definitely takes us longer to do a search with copies (which really aren't needed most of the time, because we 'abstract' all of the information the client needs), than a search without copies. Thus, we charge a premium for the copies - we might make 75 cents per copy in some counties for our time to make them.  That way, a client that only wants copies of pertinent pages, isn't paying the same price as the client that wants full copies of everything.  They would both pay the same price if we just built the cost into our search and I just don't think that is fair to our clients that don't ask for copies.

I guess it all depends on your perspective.  I'm old school.

Best,
Robert A. Franco
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