If I complete a search, I charge the search fee no matter what.  If I start a search, even if it is just taxes that I have completed, I charge $25.00 cancellation fee.  I have received the search, written up the order and called various taxing units to do taxes, etc.  Even receiving an order and writing it up you have spent some time and you need to charge something.  I had one company - sent me the order - without complete information and assigned it to a county - I went to the county - one of those that you can't check all avenues before you leave to make sure it was assigned right, went to the county - wrote up a report regarding the appraisal info/county info and that there is no documentation but the city is only in this county.  Then  they decided that they would send me the entire D/T to show me it is there - like 20 or 30 pages - and mind you all - a faxed page costs about .10 per page to receive - only to see that they said it was in a different city and county then it was assigned to, then had to notify them of the new county - then they sent me a new order on the new county - I said well I charge this amount because it is completely a book search county - so they cancelled the order and didn't think they were going to pay me to drive to that other county, do all that lookup, type a letter regarding my findings, accept a D/T and tell them the county it was really in.  I even reduced the price to include only service fee because this company you have to include copies in your pricing.  I am getting paid for this sorry - this has happened on 3 occassions.