Title expense on property that didn't close

[Shane H.]

I just had a deal fall through... The seller never produced leases as agreed, we extended the contract to try to resolve this. the seller did not want to continue in attempt to resolve it We agreed to terminate the contract. I let the escrow/title agent know that and the agent sent over the request to return the escrow money.

The attorney is requesting payment for a title search she performed.

At what point is this normally performed. My attorney in my home state would not have ordered it until contingencies were resolved AND would have emailed me to verify all was well first. The same for my attorney in another state. This was a new attorney in a different state. Is this common practice to automatically begin working on title and the charge the buyer if it falls through?

[Russell Brazil]

Seems like you hired someone to perform a service, then you should pay them for that service. If you wanted the work done later, then you should have hired them or directed them to do that service at a later date.