Document fees are an extra profit line item.
When you deal/buy insist on only talking about the bottom line. It doesn't matter to you which line any costs or fees land, the bottom line is what counts.
Yes, I just remembered something and laughed to myself. It's not funny but it is now that I think about it. My wife and I have a home under construction, we went into contract 08/22 we should be closing in the coming month.
In the contract one of the costs was a "builder fee" I kid you not, we were buying a house for a set price but part of the deal is paying the builder that we are going into contract with, a fee that he charges, because we are buying his house! *LOL*
The salesperson even acknowledged he has no idea why (I know why! *LOL*) but it is what it is. Its just a fraction of 1% and I didnt really care as we were getting a good incentive anyway and quite honestly I think still to this day a great price because we got in at the start of a new phase in the community where no homes were completed yet.
So even now, we have "fee" creep into the home building industry, ohhhhh!!!
Heck, I just thought of a "fee" in the home selling business with a national RE firm but local broker! I signed a listing agreement last year (we sold our house into contact in less then a few days) at a specified commission, since I knew the person I just went with it and skimmed over and signed.
Anyway, upon reading that evening, I saw besides the commission a $500 transaction fee was in the listing agreement!!! *LOL* I called right away ... He removed it right away and whether true or not said that is supposed to be just for the buyers and he didnt know why it was in there, ummmm... I dont believe him as this was a listing agreement. I suspect RE firms will now, if they can get away with it, have you pay the salaries of the staff in fees = more profit!