Getting a domain whose owner has passed away

[NetworkPearl]

Hi,

I'm interested in a domain name who's owner has passed away in a few months. The registrar is GodDadd y and the owner is still the registrant and admin whereas the technical contact is a web design company.

I tried to call the owner, number is not active anymore and neither are the emails.

So I got in touch with the technical contact and told them about this. They stated that they don't have a contact with the owner for years now.

What can be done? Expiry date is quite far.

 

[DU]

everyday we go to domain name auctions that should not be placed on auction but instead be released to the public. we are all contributing to this unethical *and illegal* behavior of registrars. many domains were even snatched from passed away persons who had wives and kids that could inherit the domains. but registrars took them and then wait for some years to sell them at profit to all of us, honest persons.

You're talking about passive vs active ethics. There's no moral equivalence, for example, between letting someone die and killing someone.

 

[matrigaldo]

Oh Lord,
i'm NOT referring to the reselling part, it's OK, great, awesome, fantastic to sell a domain with a 23171279x ROI.

I'm ONLY talking about the initial part: someone dies, and a speculator would take advantages from his death, trying to acquire the dead person's domain name at such low price ONLY BECAUSE his relatives are unaware of any value it would have.

This is extremely different to acquire a domain from someone who consciously sold it to you at low price because of ignorance or whatever reason.

 

[DU]

They were not taken advantage of. They were given $XX,XXX (a significant amount of money) for assets they didn't know were valuable and that would have expired if we didn't contact them and help them through the process. In the case of the lawyer, it caused the family to owe less money and have less financial hardship during a time that was already tough enough for them. I don't know what happened in the other case, but the money could have gone to paying for the funeral for all we know. No matter where it went, paying someone thousands of dollars unexpectedly is never a negative thing, despite your attempts to make it one.

I hope they gave you a big thank you for taking an asset out of their hands for much less than it was worth and saving them money. It was very charitable of you.

 

[DU]

I like the font emphasis on you. Keep it up.

I will try but it's not as easy as it looks I'll probably do it wrong eventually

There is never a right answer here and there are different degrees of right and wrong. My position is what my position is and others think what others think. Some cases more black and white than yours - I probably shouldn't judge so harshly on a personal level. I think that ambulance-chasing, grave-digging are modes of operation that should not, in general, be fostered as a positive approach to domaining.

 

[Kate]

Does he have any heirs ? This can be a tricky situation.

 

[NetworkPearl]

Does he have any heirs ? This can be a tricky situation.

Yea he should. I will carry on a detailed research tonight.

He passed away at the age of 74 and I have his info etc from a obituary website that held his funeral.

 

[NetworkPearl]

I've helped friends do this twice. The first time, we had to get in touch with the lady's son (required social media stalking) who then represented the family and negotiated the price, splitting the proceeds with his family. The second time, we had to get in touch with the guy's lawyer who became the beneficiary of the domain due to legal fees associated with disposition of the guy's assets.

My friends were able to get domains easily worth $50-100k for $15k and 20k respectively. It was exciting playing PI to hunt down these people ((to give them money)).

Cool I'll try to do the same.

 

[NetworkPearl]

he will die in a few month??

sorry I meant he passed away few months ago.

 

[NetworkPearl]

@Insha010 this is a different case, you're not trying to negotiate, you're trying to do something in the thin line between legit and unethic.

What's unethic about this?

 

[matrigaldo]

@DomainVP
No wonder you have "Messages: 2,462" and "Likes Received: 7,272" ... a 1:3 ratio!!! You are a good guy that educates and is ethical. I want to be like you when I grow up

LOL it's not fair, i started being an active user here way before NP implemented the like/dislike/thank thing.

 

[Billy Wagner]

I agree to not taking advantage of people.But when a domain is worth around 4-5k at whole sale I can pay the same amount to them swiftly and without and troubles.

Besides I called the IT women who was in charge of the domain. She left this IT company( who I contacted initially as stated in the first post) a year ago and I was able to get phone number from them.

She is in fact well aware of the potential of this domain name and told me she will approach the relatives if my offer is fair.

I quoted $8K for this domain.

Let's see how it turns out.

I agree. I was referencing paying someone $10K for a domain worth $100K, which was posted earlier. If you're paying them fair reseller prices, that's completely different.

 

[platey]

As lotg as the domain is purchased for a fair reasonable price close to market value it should be a win win for all concerned eg the seller as nd the buyer a.d. the estate

As more and more domain names are purchased etc and domains being left in trust etc and wills etc this scenario will become more common to other domainers

 

[Sam Roy]

I don't think it is wrong to contact the relatives of dead person. If @Insha010 or someone does not contact eventually the domain will be dropped and will be up for backordering. The family of deceased won't get a penny. At least now they are getting something. Further, I find Insha's offer to deceased family member is fair.

 

[DU]

I'm not Lowballing but paying reseller prices or even more.

"Reseller pricing" is a concept made up to justify low-balling on a high quality name or avoid paying too much on a low quality name.

This domain is probably worth around $30k I'd start the offer with a $2k offer.

That's not reseller pricing, that's being an asshole.

 

[NetworkPearl]

Well there is nothing wrong in approaching owners/heirs and offer them a good price for their domains.
Now selling is a different story. You will price your domain 30k-40K but you won't get even a $1000 offer in years. Sometimes a good name won't sell for a long time. There is a lot of risk involved because most of us have got a lot of domains and have to pay thousands of dollars in renewals every year... That's why domainers try to buy low and sell high. If you have 100 domains you might sell 2-3 domains in a year (still no guarantee).

If buying low is unethical then Selling high is also unethical? I have seen regfee domains sold in 5 and 6 figures.....

Anyone who got an offer of 5K for a domain they got on $100 few months ago?
I would love to meet that domainer who rejected an offer of lets say 5K and counter with a 1K sale price because the profit was too much and it was very unethical to sell that high? anyone?

Exactly

 

[NetworkPearl]

Dude, i'm afraid you didn't read anything in this thread.

We're not talking about high ROIs , we are always happy to reg a domain and sell it at $5000.

We're talking about someone trying to symbolically "steal" a domain from an unaware family offering a lowball amount.

$8K is lowball? You're the one not reading this thread properly.

Go drink a cup of Coffee.

 

[urlurl]

thinking of myself, if i were to die, i would hope someone approached my family and gave them something if anything then let my portfolio just expire.

 

[matrigaldo]

I just pointed out that maybe this situation would involve ethical thoughts, and tried to focus about how fair and ethical would be offer a low amount to unaware relatives for a domain owner by a dead person worthing a lot more (we talked about $2k - $30k but it's just an example).

Personally i wouldn't feel good offering such a lowball if i'm sure i can get $30k from that domain, even considering they're probably unaware about the value and/or the entire domaining world, and probably they would even give all the domains away for a bunch of dollars. I would feel better with a $10k offer, still lower than the value i see, but closer and, well, not a lowball.

It's not illegal to offer $1k or even $400 , and it's not illegal to take advantage of similar situations and acquire, i.e., a property (such as domain names) at a lower price.
It happens everywhere, everytime, in any fields, not only in domaining.

However it's kinda frustrating to see how many domainers wouldn't even consider any ethical involvements in cases like this, and proceed with the acquisition of a high value domain names from unaware relatives.

It's not similar at all to any situation where a buyer and an aware seller negotiate a sale and the buyer succeed with the purchase at a looow price.

But... i'm tired to repeat the same things, whoever could understand my point or not, it's a free forum after all.

 

[Haykay2005]

At this point. I think the Registrars should start having a next of kin form to cater for events like death. Domaining is an investment/business and should be treated like one

 

[damance]

How old are you @Insha010?

 

[Haris]

Getting a domain whose owner has passed away?

Email them, Call them, visit the home address in the whois if you can, use social media, search their email and phone number on facebook/twitter and you'll find their profiles, then you can easily contact their family members..

imo

 

[rhakim]

As most likely the heir is not a domainer, therefore not aware the value of the domain nor how to sell the domain, most likely the domain will just expire and catched by a dropcatch company. In this situation eventhough the purchase price of the domain is only 20% of the value, it will still be additional money for the heir.

 

[Haris]

Yeah, right..

Paying less then the full market price is still not being completely honest.. pay the full market price.. and then sell at break-even.. take Temazepam.. sleep better.

 

[ksusha64]

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