"Please don't shoot the messenger," which is what I heard from the attorneys representing different national title insurance companies explaining HUD's new RESPA regulations. You will see more requests to quote your abstracting fee as a "fixed amount" with no add-ons to the quoted fee for variable copying costs, mileage, additional time required, etc.

 In its wisdom to "save the consumer at least $700 in mortgage loan costs" by creating a shopping list and consolidating all costs into three buckets, HUD placed "all title services" within the new GFE "bucket"  that cannot increase more than 10% from the Good Faith Estimate  to the HUD-1 settlement statement.  Because this "bucket" is overflowing with other technically uncontrolled, third-party costs and fees (including lenders title insurance, owners title insurance [if the borrower decides to purchase a more expensive policy, the cap is popped] and government recording charges), many will be asked to "fix an exact fee" for an inexact science with expenses that vary from search to search.

What happens if it's two days before a purchase closing or before the rate lock expires and the HUD-1 shows the 10% capped bucket exceeds the cap? It has to be "cured" or a new GFE issued to the borrower and the closing Is Delayed by at least "3 business days after the corrected disclosures are mailed to the borrower".

There's more to the January 1, 2010, changes than this ... but this bucket alone was enough to give everyone in the room heartburn and headaches.  The regulations allow you to "fix" your fee using an average cost method. (I understood it, but I'm not explaining this one!)