Hi Scott,

No I am not proposing a franchise, and your participation in the LLC does not impair your current business. You continue to run your business without any changes. The new LLC becomes a new client for your business. You are investing in a new enterprise in much the same way as if you bought stock in U S Steel. Your investment in U S Steel would not impair your ability to run your business. Neither does your investment in the LLC. In a franchise you would be paying for a license to use someone else's product or service. I share your dislike of franchises.

With an LLC or a corporation you buy into it and own a piece of the LLC or corporation. It is responsive to the needs of its members or shareholders. The LLC or corporation markets to the lenders, signs the account and assigns out the work to its abstractors and signing agents...but at the prices the signing agents and abstractors want rather than at a low price imposed upon them by someone else. How does the LLC pay the higher prices to the abstractors and signing agents, and remain competitve in the market place? It finds somewhere else to trim the fat from its processing fees other than the fees paid to the abstractors and signing agents.

Remember, you still have all your other clients. You are free to develop other clients on your own on whatever terms you like. The income provided by the LLC is not your sole source of income. Hopefully it will become a major source of income, and one on which you can depend while you negotiate more favorable terms with your other clients.