Just a heads up to everyone that Lawyers Advantange in Virginia expects its vendors to work on spec (even with a contract that nullifies that clause) and even when you can show that they prepared the deed for the closing with a copy from the courthouse, won't pay with the ruse that the buyer's closed with another company, and therefore they did not collect a fee for their vendor's work at closing. This company seems to have the contract for the sales of properties in Virginia that are owned by HUD.

What burns be up is the only reason that I did and sent the last search to them, is the person in their office who requested that search, said she had verified the invoices were outstanding and everything was sent to the bookkeeper, so I shoudl be getting a check by the end of the week. When no check arrived, we had to send everything to the manager and then were told we would not be paid since none of the clsoings had happened. I was suspicious and checked online and found that all but one of them had closed with the deeds prepared by Lawyers Advantage. and sent them copies of the deeds along with a request for payment.

That is when they said all searches were done on spec and only paid at closing as per their contract (I had crossed that part out and initialled it on the copy that I sent to them - they never returned a signed copy of it back to me). The amazing thing is that in an earlier case, I have another client who closed one of their properties last year and he had to cut me 2 checks for the same search as I did it for Lawyers Advantage and for his company. But, according to Lawyers Advantage the fee for the work I did was not collected, Why not?

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that Lawyers Advantage in VA expects its vendors to work on spec (even when the contract you send them indicates that you won't do this!) and does not pay at closing.