NOT all Transfers are FREE for Self-Managed TAGS?

[Stephen]

It is starting to look like Nominet have mislead with their statement that there will be FREE transfers for Self-Managed TAG holders,
in their various consultations and meetings.

It appears, in the small print it is only SOME of the transfers that will escape the £12 charge, for Self-managed TAG holders..

If you have a domain not in a connected name but within your 5%, you have to pay the £12 to transfer it into one of the 5 connected names!
or if you take it from another TAG.

So any in-coming domains to a self-managed portfolio will still carry a Nominet transfer cost equal to 4 years renewal.

A way around it would be to find a fully accredited Nominet TAG holder who does a Free registrant change (no charge to Nominet to the TAG holder) and a Free TAG holder change.
But what a lot of extra effort to save £12.

Nominet seem to want to be more commercial whilst not looking after the needs of its members and the registrants.

It may not effect many people but it is not right to carry on charging anyone the £12.

 

[Stephen]

clause C4

Just received this from Nominet;

The clause of the new Registrar Agreement covering free transferring of domains for self managed tags is C.4.
Only accredited tags are able to transfer any domain on their tag for free.

http://www.nominet.org.uk/sites/default/files/Revised_Registrar_Agreement_January_2014_FINAL.PDF

The clause reads;

C.3. Domain names on a Self Managed Tag must usually be registered only in the name of the Registrar. You may specify a maximum of five Registrant names at any one time which will be regarded for the purposes of this paragraph as being Your name. These must be linked to you in some way, for example personal, trading or business names that you use or are closely connected with, and you must be able to provide evidence of this if we ask for it.
We may permit a small number of domain names on a Self Managed Tag to be registered in the name of a third party but this shall be no more than the lower of: a) fifty or b) 5% of the total domains registered under your Self Managed Tag. Any changes to such limits on registrations will be Notified to you from time to time. If you register any domain names to a third party on a Self Managed Tag, you must ensure that you comply with the obligations set out for Channel Partner Tags, as set out below, in relation to those domain names.

C.4. You may transfer domain names registered in Your name on a Self Managed Tag to a new Registrant, free of charge, subject to compliance with all other obligations (in particular, and without limitation, the Rules and the restrictions in paragraph C.3 above).

 

[Retired_Member39]

Yes these £12 fee's really are a pain. I mean if you are a small business/domain business selling 80 high xx - low xxx domains a year to other businesses many of whom will also be small thats a whooping £940 per year that has to be covered by the buyer and seller. Even paying for example £200 a year for a years worth of free transfers would be a better option than the current situation. It doesnt really make much sense to me how a not for profit organisation can rake in so much off its members on transfer fee's.

 

[diablo]

Yes these £12 fee's really are a pain. I mean if you are a small business/domain business selling 80 high xx - low xxx domains a year to other businesses many of whom will also be small thats a whooping £940 per year that has to be covered by the buyer and seller. Even paying for example £200 a year for a years worth of free transfers would be a better option than the current situation. It doesnt really make much sense to me how a not for profit organisation can rake in so much off its members on transfer fee's.

When Nominet operated a a paper based transfer system, transfer fees could be justified, but £12 for a fully automated online system? It's wrong.

 

[Retired_Member39]

When Nominet operated a a paper based transfer system, transfer fees could be justified, but £12 for a fully automated online system? It's wrong.

Yes you are right Diablo. Is anyone else going to try and make this an issue that needs seriously raising?. I did not digest the recent members pack i got recently but it looks like Nominet have made a decent profit.

 

[PaulGregory]

Playing devil's advocate for a moment, £2 is VAT and a % of the £12 will go in card processing fees.

And it's per batch, not per domain. At least that's reasonable.

Most importantly, the fee is not aimed at members but domain owners (old/new). It can't be put on the account. Other fees aimed at domain owners are higher, eg a tag transfer.

"Self managed" is aimed at members who are domain owners.

Returning to the actual point of this thread, which is that Self managed TAG holders don't escape fees for incoming domain names. This does seem silly.

Are you sure there's no workaround?

How is the "5 connected names" counted? Is this the same as "registrant account", or could one email address have multiple 'connected names'? I would have thought you could just change the email address on the contact to move it into a connected registrant account, then use a free transfer to get the right Registrant name. Could you add the third-party name as a connected name, then remove it?