Michaela,

I understand your frustration. However, we live in a free enterprise system. In your case it sounds like you were able to recover the lost client because the quality of your work was superior to the companies of which you complain. That is a great success story.

In so far as eliminating lower priced competitors is concerned, there is not much that can be done unless the competitors are engaged in predatory pricing, a form of price fixing. There is much case law on this subject. It usually involves large mercantile chains entering a market, and dropping their prices below the market rate temporarily with the intent of putting smaller competitors out of business. However, if a competitor is able to create an legitimately efficient system of competing,  the market variables will determine its success or failure. The market price/quality of service/speed of service more or less regulate which businesses are most competitive and able to survive. There has been much discussion on this board in recent months concerning the increased costs involved in performing a search (primarily gasoline prices). The prices for a search have not risen very much in the past 5 to 10 years. The fees are usually dictated by the clients rather than negotiated with the abstractor in an arm's length transaction of equal bargaining power. It is hard to envision how anyone could further reduce their fees without losing money on the transaction. I suppose the issue is going to be reduced to that of price versus quality. I do not plan to wait around to find out the outcome.

In the case of my firm, we have elected to reduce the amount of abstracting we do in favor of other more profitable lines of endeavor such as real estate closings. We are preparing for the worst. We have already cut loose all problem clients, and replaced them with higher paying closings clients. The closings pay better. There are a multitude of potential clients in the market place with new companies entering the arena everyday to replace the less efficient ones that prove to be non-competitive. Therefore,
the closer has more bargaining power in price negotiation than the abstractor.