I understand Roger, and as I said - it was a fair question.  I can see how it could be a point of concern.  When I decided to become a licensed agent, I was worried that my abstracting clients would see me as competition.  I finally decided that the experience would make be a better abstractor.  I go to the required continuing education courses, I get the underwriter bulletins, I have access to legal coucil, etc... All of that has helped me provide better service to my clients.  I now have a better understanding of what they need from me to make sound underwriting decisions.  That has been a bigger benefit than the work we do as an agent.

I have been an abstractor for over 11 years and have operated an agency for 6 years.  I have never tried to take work from my abstracting clients, in fact it was my biggest client that helped me find an underwriter and helped me study for the licensing exam. 

I hope that you feel better about Source of Title from my response.  I get e-mails from people who are skeptical about us - they wonder "why" we would do this for FREE.  The answer is simple... the site wouldn't be as useful or popular if we charged everybody.  We wanted to create a site that would be a great resource and help everyone in our industry.  Of course, we would like to make a profit, but that has not been our primary objective.  Slade and I are currently working on several projects to find ways to benefit our users that would be fee based, but we realize that they have to offer a good benefit to them in order to succeed.  We are looking for a win/win solution here.  If we don't deliver something that really improves their business - they won't pay for it.  We just hope that if we can deliver, people will be willing to pay for a valuable service.

Regards,
Robert A. Franco
SOURCE OF TITLE