Questions answered

Before paying

Is escrow necessary for a small purchase?

Not always, but the threshold is lower than most people assume. The test is not the size of the amount, it is how much would be lost if the seller vanished after payment.

Can a buyer pay the seller directly and be safe?

Only where the seller is identifiable, verifiable and reachable, and where the mechanism is a push that completes in minutes. Direct payment against a promise of a transfer days later leaves the buyer with no leverage.

What proves that a seller actually controls the name?

A live change only the controller could make: a TXT record containing a string the buyer chose, a file placed at the root of the site, or a nameserver change. A screenshot of a control panel proves nothing.

Should the registrant name in a public lookup match the seller?

It should where the data is published, but most contact fields are redacted for privacy. Absence of a name is normal and proves nothing either way, which is why a live control check is the useful test.

What happens if the name turns out to infringe a trademark?

The domain can be lost through a dispute procedure regardless of what was paid. A warranty does not prevent that, but it records what the seller represented and gives the buyer a claim.

Payment and money

What is the safest order of events?

Funds held by an escrow provider, then the handover, then release. Any proposal that puts release before the name is in the buyer's account is not an escrow arrangement.

Can a payment be reversed after the domain has been transferred?

Some routes can, weeks or months later. Card payments and certain processor payments carry a reversal window that outlasts the handover entirely, which is a seller risk rather than a buyer one.

Is a bank transfer reversible?

Generally not once it has settled. The sending bank can request a recall, but the receiving bank is not obliged to return funds without the recipient agreeing.

What if the bank details change during the negotiation?

Treat it as interception until proven otherwise. Confirm the details by calling a number found independently of the message, never the number in the signature of the email that carried the new details.

Who pays the escrow cost?

It is a matter of agreement rather than a rule, and a split is common. What causes problems is leaving it unsettled until after the price is agreed, which stalls transfers at exactly the wrong moment.

Does an invoice have to be issued for a domain sale?

A business seller normally has to issue one, and the tax treatment depends on where both parties are and whether the buyer is a business. A private seller issues something simpler.

Locks and timing

How long does a transfer take?

For .com, .net and .org, up to about five days, and faster when the losing registrar approves at once. For .de, .be, .nl and .eu the registry acts as soon as a valid credential is submitted. A push inside one registrar takes minutes.

Why can a newly bought domain not be transferred?

On generic extensions a registrar may refuse an outbound transfer within sixty days of registration, within sixty days of a previous transfer, and following a change of registrant. The detail is in registrar locks and waiting periods.

Does changing the registrant lock the name?

On generic extensions it can, for sixty days, unless the previous registrant opted out at the time the change was made. This is why a buyer planning to move the name to another registrar should transfer first and change contacts afterwards.

Do authorisation codes expire?

Yes, and the window varies. DENIC expires a .de AuthInfo after thirty days, DNS Belgium sets a .be transfer code at seven days with resends extending it, and other registries and registrars set their own. Request the code when it is needed, not weeks early.

Why does .co.uk work differently?

Nominet uses a registrar tag rather than an authorisation code. The losing registrar changes the tag and the gaining registrar claims the name, so there is no credential to place with an escrow provider.

After the handover

When is the buyer really the owner?

When the name sits in an account that only the buyer can open, under an email the seller never had access to, with two factor authentication on and every seller recovery path removed.

What if the seller still has access afterwards?

Then the handover is incomplete. Old recovery addresses, marketplace listings, DNS provider accounts and nameservers on the seller side all need clearing, in the order set out in the first week after payment.

What records are worth keeping?

The agreement, the invoice, proof of payment, the escrow record, the control check, the lookups before and after, and the handover screenshots. The full list is in documents to keep.

Can a completed transfer be undone?

Rarely, and not by a registry acting on a commercial complaint. Reversal generally requires both parties to agree, or a dispute procedure or a court order, which is why the checks belong before the payment rather than after it.