Deborah,
In most cases your statement would be correct. In New Jersey the tax information is not available to the abstractor in the record room. The only way to obtain the tax information is through the municipality. ( of which there are 567 in NJ) Therefore every closing requires a tax search provided either by the municipality or a company like mine. It is very unfair for a customer to ask an abstractor to obtain tax status, as the abstractor does not have access to these records and needs to rely on verbal information provided over the phone. In our experience 27% of the information provided over the phone is incorrect.
Furthemore, there is no doubt in my mind that there is a charge for a tax search on the HUD statement which would mean that the agent is robbing the consumer.