Expired domains

I have a few domains and realised that unfortunately i missed the expiry date for a couple of domains as I had used an old email address.

The registrar is now saying that I have to pay £75 to get a .net domain back as its gone past the redemption period.

in regards to the .uk domains which expired these are stuck with the registrar for a few months until they become publically available.

Is this normal?

Sounds normal to me. The com/net/org domains (and many others) end up costing more to get back once they enter redemption. I think this is an ICANN charge so the registrar needs to pass that on to the customer (not completely certain about that though).

As for UK domains, the registrar holding those can renew them at any point up until they finally drop (normally 3 months after expiry, though the exact time is randomised so as not to invalidate one of Nominet's core policies as a registry: to provide domain registrations on a first come, first serve basis - for that reason, they must randomise the drop time). Of course, whether the registrar holding these domains decides to charge the customer more for renewing past X days after domain expiry is another matter entirely. You can always renew UK domains directly with Nominet, but this is considerably more expensive.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Jan-13 21:34:36)

thanks
re; uk domains, looks like will try and register when they drop as i really dont fancy paying mad money.

looking at .net domain they seem to have registered the domain for another year as themselves

Yes, for com/net/org domains, I think ICANN push the expiry on by a whole year, whilst putting the domain into redemption state. So whilst it looks they have renewed it, they haven't (well, ICANN have, but the registrar hasn't, so it's in redemption (if you see what I mean)). If you pay to get the domain back, they will simply remove the redemption state and leave the expiry date as is (1 year forward aka renewed for 1 year).

As for trying to re-register at drop time, be very careful about doing that. Many registrars (members of Nominet) have direct access to the faster, DAC/WHOIS2 service which allows them to perform very rapid query rates against the registry, and as soon as they detected a drop, they can re-register the domain. We're talking less than a second here. If your domains are valuable, I suggest you pay up. If the charge is more than £80 + VAT, renew the domains directly with Nominet (that is what Nominet charge). A better idea would be to transfer the domains to an alternative "reasonable" registrar who doesn't charge these outrageous renewal fees, and renew normally through them instead. Though the current registrar may charge you some fee to switch the tag on the domains at Nominet to an alternative registrar. Most decent registrars (like the one I am with) do not charge for this, however.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Jan-13 21:54:31)

£75 is reasonable, I think the registry fee is $40 but enom charge $250.

It's pretty much 90 days from expiry before the .uk domains will be available to register again.

Lo there Algy. How's tricks?

Good Cam, spending most of my time over on reddit, the imaginary internet points I earn there are just so much more satisfying.