Since the lease to buy option is likely to become more commonplace in the future (as the value of quality domains rises), and since nobody has mentioned it so far, and since it is good to give credit where credit is due, here’s a description of lease/buy with Escrow.com.
A buyer requested a payment plan on a $5,000 name I had at Uniregistry Market. A Uni broker asked me if I was interested (and since I have had great experiences with Escrow.com in the past) I said sure, I’d like to give it a try. It’s good to learn.
So the broker, in consultation with the buyer came up with the following proposal which I agreed to. From memory, it’s like this:
40% deposit - $2,000.
On payment, I paid the Uniregistry sales commission in full of 15% on the $5,000.
(Deducted from my $2,000).
I think the buyer paid the Escrow commission in full on top of his $2,000.
(So he is paying a little more than $5,000 for the domain.)
Six monthly payments of 10% - $500 each.
I just went along with the suggested contract but you can probably negotiate things a bit.
It’s a beautifully designed system. The domain is held by Escrow.com for six months so neither I nor the buyer can move it. Escrow has let the buyer provide their DNS address so they can use the domain immediately, but not access it.
Under the contract, if a buyer stops paying, the seller can give notice that payment must be received within a certain reasonable time, if not the domain will ultimately be returned to the seller.
The contract is excellent and is signed in association with Docusign, who you need to join. So there is a well thought out four way contract with all four parties getting a digital copy. So it’s digitally signed by me the seller, by the buyer, by Brian Tharp on behalf of Escrow.com and by Jeff Gabriel on behalf of Uniregistry.
I’ve been highly impressed with the design of this system and wouldn’t hesitate to use it again.
As
@MadAboutDomains said in an earlier comment, Jeff Gabriel from Uniregistry has announced in a DomainNameWire podcast the roll-out of a proprietary lease buy system for Uniregistry clients, It’s built on a system that’s been used successfully for years by Frank Schilling’s portfolio.