And, thank you Kevin for sharing that.  After you first posted that advice, I was successful in making that argument, too.  We did a commercial search for a new client.  My examiner over-looked their requirement that we had to call them for approval if our fee was going to be more than $200. 

We called them a couple of times to tell them that there were some big problems in the chain of title and we needed more time to complete the search.  They had no problem with the additional time.  In the end, it took us about 3 full days (spread over a week) to complete the search.  We billed them around $1,000.

They called right away and said that they would only pay $200 because we didn't get authorization before completing it.  I asked them "if they really thought that after our conversations about how difficult the search was, and taking 3 days of labor to do it, that it would only cost $200."  They said that "wasn't their problem."

That is when I said "fine, if you don't want to pay for it, sent it back to me with a letter stating that you won't use it and that we have no liability for any potential claims."  I also let them know that this was a small county, and we would know if someone else was there for a week working on that search.  We would also know if they filed a mortgage without getting a new search from someone else.

Realistically, they knew that even if they ordered the search from someone else, it was going to cost more than $200.  After a little more back-and-forth, I finally asked him "what do you think the search is worth?  Give me a reasonable figure that will make us both happy."

He breifly thought about that and agreed to pay the full fee we charged.

Our commercial searches start at $250, so we should have called them right away and told them it was going to cost more than $200.  But, still... we were only asking that they pay a fair price for the work we did.  And, this was a pretty big deal - with the amount of their premium, I was really surprised that they spent that much time arguing about it.

Best,
Robert A. Franco
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