Nominet Domain Status

I've seen a few of those recently. I think it suggests that the existing registrant has actively declined a renewal rather than passively ignored it...

 

Or the registrant has been dissolved, such as with 'invoicing co.uk'.

 

There is a "No Longer Required" button in the Nominet online system that you can use if you want to flag a domain as such.

Once it's passed its renewal date, I think it just has the effect of stopping renewal emails being sent out. It will be dropped as normal.

 

I've seen loads of them, I think I commented on it a while ago.

They continue to expire as normal, only no warnings. The flag can be turned off or on, its kinda like a cooling off period