I think you are talking about a mark up in price, rather than non payment of a vendor. There was some discussion last year about this in which there seemed to be a split of authority in the federal circuits on the issue of third party mark ups. I am not sure if there has been any more recent case law since then.

With respect to the nonpayment of the vendor abstractor, he would seem to be a subcontractor to the title company. If the title company has charged X amount of dollars for a search, and the disbursement agent has paid those funds, it would seem that the disbursement agent's obligations have been met under RESPA. If the title company has unlawfully marked up the price of the search, this may or may not be a violation of RESPA depending on what federal circuit in which it is litigated and until the U S Supreme Court has ruled on the issue in order to get uniformity in all the federal circuits.

Whether RESPA governs the payment of the subcontractor abstractor is questionable. I have not seen any case law on the subject one way or the other, but that is not to say that there is none. There are other more tried and true remedies available to him.

RESPA does require accurate reporting of all charges and their correct amounts. If there is both a search and an examination with separate fees, they would both need to be reported on the HUD 1 sheet. Although I have had one attorney tell me that both the fees were included in the search fee.