When a personal friend mentions a search for a brand for a new business or a rebrand of their business, you might want to think twice about mentioning one of your domain name as an option. It may be nice to offer an assist to a friend who might be in the market for a domain name, but the offer could backfire if it is considered.

Domain name negotiations can be challenging, even under good circumstances. Trying to come to terms on the sale price of a domain name is usually difficult. The buyer, who may be constrained by the acquisition budget, business partner, or supervisor, wants to pay as little as possible. The seller needs to get the best possible price for a domain name, particularly on irreplaceable assets. Working with an unknown counter-party is tough, but negotiating a business deal with a friend poses unique challenges.

Ned OMeara shared a post on LinkedIn, and he gave me permission to share it here because the message is important. Domain registrants, and particularly domain investors, need to create a plan to protect their business assets for when they die.

Ned shared a story about a client of his who purchased one of his three letter .com domain names many years ago. When he recently noticed it was sold in an expiry auction, he learned that his client had died. It seemed apparent that renewal notices sent to his client’s email address went unseen, and the domain name was not renewed by the client’s next of kin:

When a domain name transfers to a different domain registrar, the nameservers remain the same until they are changed. When a domain name uses the initial registrar’s default nameservers, which is often what people use for forwarding, the nameservers will not resolve after the domain name is transferred. As a result, a domain name that forwards to a different domain name, will no longer forward correctly.

I maintained a small portfolio of domain names at Enom for many years. These names were primarily names I bought via NameJet that were pushed to my Enom account, but there were also some hand registered domain names. Because the price of .com domain names is relatively cheap, I continued to renew them at Enom. In addition, a transfer would lock all of the names for 60 days, making them ineligible for the GoDaddy / Afternic Fast Transfer network during that period of time.