There are a couple of issues I would like to address here also.  What should the split be as far as the fee the national vendor gets with the portion that actually gets paid to us.  Not only do we have all the expenses that they have as far as equipment, insurance and office expense we have travel expense (gas, courthouse parking fees, business car insurance, etc) and travel time - which is a lot over what they have per order.  If it came down to it I would think we would be upset at the split of the fee.  I also have to note that some companies have led on to me that they are actually fronted "costs" from the lenders, etc on the orders and yet we are holding these costs for 4-8 weeks - I believe the fact that we are holding everyone's cost and coming up with the upfront money should yield us an even bigger portion of the split.  How many of you have incurred late charges or credit line charges to hold these costs before - especially when you are starting out.  All I know is that I started out at a fee years ago and charged copy costs a little higher than my courthouse did to cover the time incurred in faxing, holding costs, etc on each copy.  I since then reduced the copy costs to exactly what they charge and have been asked to go down to the original price of 4 years ago.  My gas is higher, my parking fees are higher (how many of you have parking fees at the individual courthouses - just one courthouse here in Texas charges $50.00 a month for me to park).  I am beginning to think we have all been fools of the industry - we are the bottom line incurring all the costs and expense of travel and nationwide vendors are going for the cheapest and not even checking out the vendors.  Oh one more thing - lol - if what they call a test is the kind of test I have gotten - it is a joke - I think I remember something totally stupid like a mixed up name or a minor change in the legal.  Get real - there is much more to researching than that and knowing real estate law.  I have even had to explain a search to a vendor company that told me that I produced the wrong document. -  to shorten the story - the order was for a 20,000 mort and assign - I produced a mort for $35,000 with a rider that said it was 2 sep notes for 20,000 and 15,000 - all other pertinent information matched as far as legal, note date, etc. - they said i had to go back and find one just for $20,000 - I had to explain that was the correct mort and that the company would have to file a partial release if only one of the individual notes were paid.  It's pretty bad when we have to explain the work produced to the person reviewing our work. 

Lisa