munson

Hi all,

I'm not the owner but I'm working on brokering the sale of a premium generic .co.uk domain for the actual owner. I want to do the best job I can.

My first instinct is to put it up for auction or on sedo to get the best price. I'll also shop it around potential end users.

I would appreciate any tips on brokering domain sales.

For instance, I'm not sure how to go about commission and even how to word it to the owner: "For finding a buyer its X% of the final sale price. Any other fees such as escrow and auction fees will be paid out of the final sale price".

(As an aside, I'm VAT registered, but the owner is not. As VAT is scary to the unregistered, I'll take the hit on VAT and include it in the commission payment and not add it on top.)

Thanks in advance all,

Munson

fred

Be very careful on the VAT issue. I'm no expert, but I would have thought that if this is a true high value premium generic domain and if the sales price is high, then surely if the owners share of the sale is over the VAT threshold limit, they would have to become VAT registered.

__________________
Domains | Smelly Drains | Paintball | Rower | Christmas | Compensation | Skiers | Preschool Toys | Clear Debt | Make Bread | Change Supplier Whiskey | PDAs

munson

Great point Fred, thanks, that hadn't even crossed my mind. If that happens, then its "good bad" news. Good in that they get a great price for it, bad in that they have to mess around with VAT registration.

Jeewhizz

That might be the case, however, a good accountant might be able to argue it as a asset sold under CGT, and there shouldn't be any VAT applicable then - you don't have to register for vat when selling a second home!

__________________
UK Web Design & Development
Airport Car Parking | Business Help & Advice | Critical Illness Insurance | Smoothie Recipes | Baby Name Books

deconstruction

if a single sale pushes you over the vat threashold (and you can prove that without that sale you would not have gone over)

then you can write to the IR and explain (and not have to reg for vat)

best to speak to an accountant about it though

__________________
Rooms wanted | London Flats to share | Flat shares | Student Accommodation | Flatshare | Quadrathlon | Flatshare | Rooms to let

munson

Many thanks, I'll be sure to let the owners know to talk to their accountant. Munson

doodlebug

if you take care of the vat out of your commision then if for example you charged 10% commission and the final sale price was £3000 then the vat would be £525 and your commission £300 ?
YOU LOSE !
i suggest you tell the owner to take care of the vat !

__________________
No links for me thanks !

munson

Update to the situation, I thought I was going to broker this, but it fell through

Good news is the reason it fell through was because I stretched to buy it myself, unexpectedly!

Thank you everyone for the advice, the discussion didn't quite end up where I expected, i.e. more VAT, less brokering, but thats cool, its all valuable advice, so thank you again!

accelerator

My thoughts would be to contact all end users by letter, and say you're looking to sell this domain by a given date in the future, give yourself a bit of time (2 months maybe?) to allow for everyone interested to hear about it. If you can get enough people interested, then you can put it up as an auction at Sedo.

Advertise it on all relevant forums too.

In general, contact as many people as possible and ask them to let others know you are selling by this future date.

Obviously you will get the best price from whoever the domain has most business value to, so think about that when deciding who to contact.

Hope this helps.

Rgds

Accelerator

__________________
LowPrices.co.uk | My Twitter | KeyphraseDomains.co.uk | Mens Shirts | Hotels in Bath | Money Off Code

munson

Hi Accelerator,

Thanks for all of that, it will be a great help. Regarding the body of the letter, do you have any advice - short and sweet or one of those long sales letters for example?