Does buyer owe title fees upon a cancelled contract?

[Ken Tsui]

I'm a buyer, and I recently got a property under contract, but I am not going through with the purchase after the appraisal came back significantly lower than the agreed upon purchase price.  Neither I nor the seller used a realtor, so I had a lawyer write up the contract and had his title company research the title.  The title company is charging me for preparation of the contract, purchase and review of title abstract, and client communication.

Is this something that I typically would pay if a contract was not completed?  The amount he's charging me is a bit less than the amount stated in the contract that the seller would have had to pay him for the contract set up.

It seems reasonable, but I thought it was worth asking who's cost of doing business this should be - the lawyer/title company, or the buyer?

[Russell Brazil]

Yes. You hired someone to perform a service thst they performed.  Interestingly enough, had you been using an agent, you likely would have got the fees waived if they did business regularly with that title company.