How to buy a domain name someone already owns

If the domain you want is taken, you can often still buy it: find the holder, ask whether they will sell, agree a price, and have them move the name to you while someone neutral holds your money. For a .com.au or .au name there is one step a .com does not have, which is that you must be eligible to hold the name before the holder is allowed to hand it over.

What you are actually buying

Nobody strictly owns a .com.au. The .au Domain Administration Rules: Licensing say "A Person does not legally 'own' a Domain Name". The holder has a licence, and a sale is the transfer of that licence to you. That is why auDA's rules decide whether the sale can go through.

Find out who holds it

.com.au and .au

Look the name up on auDA's WHOIS. The record shows the registrant (the person or organisation holding the licence), the name and number used to establish eligibility, the registrar, and a registrant contact name and email. auDA says that contact information is public "to allow the public to get in touch with the domain name registrant". For .com.au and similar names, auDA's WHOIS policy withholds street addresses and phone numbers for privacy.

.com, .net and other global names

These follow ICANN's rules, and the public record often tells you much less. Under ICANN's Registration Data Policy, the registrar must remove the registrant's name from the public record where the law protects it, and may remove it for other reasons too, so expect it to be hidden. An organisation name must be published if the holder agreed to it, and may be hidden if they did not. In place of the holder's own email, the registrar must publish an email address or a web form that reaches them without revealing who they are.

Run the name through ICANN Lookup and use whichever contact route it lists. If the name loads a website, the contact page there is often quicker.

Is it for sale?

• It is listed on a marketplace. The listing will show an asking price, or say the holder takes offers. On Dotto, for example, a seller can "Choose an asking price, or take offers only", and you can browse the listed names.
• The name loads a "for sale" page. Use the form or address on that page.
• Neither. The name is in use, parked, or sitting idle. You can still ask, but expect silence or a no. A name a business uses every day is often not for sale at any price that makes sense.

How to approach the holder

Keep the first message short, polite and specific. Say who you are, what you want, and how you would pay. Do not open with a number unless they have published one, and do not mention lawyers or trade marks unless you actually hold a mark and have taken advice.

A first message might read:

> Hi, I'm Mel Turner from Quollridge Plumbing Pty Ltd in Geelong. I see quollridgeplumbing.com.au is registered to you and isn't showing a website at the moment. Would you consider transferring it to us? If so, I'd be glad to hear what price you have in mind. We're happy to pay through an escrow service or a marketplace, so the money is protected for both of us until the name has moved. Thanks, Mel

(Quollridge Plumbing is a made-up business.) Mentioning a protected payment early tells the holder you are serious, and that neither of you will have to trust the other with the money.

If you hear nothing after a week or two, one polite follow-up is reasonable. After that, take the silence as an answer.

How the price is set

An asking price is the holder's number. You can pay it, or offer less. It is what the holder hopes to get, not what names like it have sold for.

An offer is your number. The holder can accept it, counter it or decline it. Nothing is agreed until both of you say yes.

Say Quollridge Plumbing offers $1,200, the holder counters at $3,000, and they settle at $2,000. To pick your opening number, work out what the name is worth to you: the cost of trading under a less obvious name, reprinting a van, or changing an email address that customers already use. Then start below that figure, with room to move.

How to pay safely

Do not send money straight to a stranger and hope the name arrives. Once a bank transfer has gone, you may have no way to get it back. Use an escrow service or a marketplace that holds the payment until the name is in your hands.

On Dotto, under its terms, the buyer pays Dotto, Dotto holds the money while the domain moves, the seller transfers it, the buyer confirms it has arrived, and only then is the seller paid. Once you have paid, the seller has 7 business days to complete the transfer (the clock pauses while a step is yours to take, such as accepting the transfer at your registrar). You get a full refund if they do not, or if the domain cannot be transferred to you, "including because the registrar refuses it under auDA's rules".

If you use an escrow service outside a marketplace, type its web address yourself rather than following a link the seller sends you.

The transfer

.com.au and .au: a change of registrant

Moving an Australian name to a new holder is called a change of registrant. Under the licensing rules (section 2.13) and auDA's own transfer guide:

Who is eligible for .com.au and .au

For a .au direct name (quollridge.au), you need an Australian presence. The rules list who counts, including an Australian citizen or permanent resident, a company registered under the Corporations Act, and an entity with an Australian Business Number.

For .com.au and .net.au, you must be a commercial entity (a company or an ABN holder, for example), and the name must be one of these (the rules list a few more, such as the name of a partnership or trust you belong to):

• a match or an acronym of your company, business or personal name;
• a match of your Australian trade mark;
• a match or synonym of the name of a service you provide, goods you sell, an event you register or sponsor, an activity you run, teach or train people in, or premises you operate, which you are providing at the time.

"Match" has a strict meaning: some or all of the words in your name, in the same order, with nothing added, though "Pty Ltd", the ".com.au" and small words like "the" are ignored. Quollridge Plumbing Pty Ltd matches quollridgeplumbing.com.au, and also quollridge.com.au. A plumbing business could also rely on the service it provides for a name that is the plain word for that service. The registrar makes the check, so if you are unsure, ask the holder's registrar before you pay.

You must meet these rules on the day of the transfer.

.com and .net: a registrar transfer

There are two ways to move a global name.

• Within the same registrar. If you both use the same company, the holder can change the registrant to you there (often called a push).
• To your registrar. The holder removes the transfer lock and gets its authorisation code (also called an auth code or EPP code). You start a transfer at your registrar and enter the code. Under ICANN's Transfer Policy, if the registrar does not let the holder fetch the code themselves, it must provide it within five calendar days of the request.

Two locks can slow this down. A registrar may refuse a transfer within 60 days of a name being created or last moved between registrars. And after a change of registrant, the registrar must lock the name against moving to another registrar for 60 days, unless the registrar offered the holder an opt-out and they took it before the change. If you want the name at your own registrar, transferring it there first avoids that wait.

The traps