Just recently I had a conversation with a client who was upset with our search fees. He believed that since he had provided back title (4 separate properties in two different counties, 1 from 2006 & 3 from 2008) and the county is almost 50 miles one way from our office our fees should not exceed $35.00. His position was that since all four properties were owned by the same entity, a corporation, with some, but not many entries the fee would not be the same as if it was owned by a corporation with numerous filings. By the way, each order was placed for the 4 different properties on 4 different days. I explained we have search fees for commercially owned properties and lower search fees for individually owned properties. I also explained that with a commercially owned propetty, ie, a buildier, you could run into hundreds or thousands of entries to review. With these four properties that was not the case, but the fee is priced just for that scenerio. Our office provides a typed report for every report that we provide. Also, for the 16 counties our fees are the same, with the exception of our base county. In our base county our search fee is $10.00 less per search product produced.  I am curious as to how many examiners are providing a back title commercial search for $35.00?  One of the counties, where 3 of the properties are located, is a county that is not searched via on-line public access indices with viewable imaged records.

If there are examiners out there whe are charging $35.00 for a commercial back title search, You may need to re-evaluate what your time, knowledge and experiance is worth. We may have lost this client, and I believe we did, but I don't feel it is my company's best interest to cheapen our work by only charging his suggested fee. In other words, he will get what he is willing to pay for.