This is a story about how I ended up hand registering a domain the owner wouldn’t budge on.

Here’s what happened:

I had my eyes on a domain and made a reasonable offer via Sedo a while back.

The person in question countered.

After a series of back-and-forth offer exchanges, the owner just wouldn’t budge.

Guess what I did?

I performed a whois search (I was searching via Sedo at that point, didn’t perform a whois search beforehand in that case, not sure why – I was probably busy and simply stumbled upon the domain in question via Sedo somehow) and realized that the owner forgot to renew the domain.

Yep, it was available.

Obviously, I hand registered it at regfee and there you have it.

I’m sure there are countless mistakes like this in the domaining business.

Lots of people assume they still own the domain and start negotiating.

Don’t make that mistake.

If you receive an offer via Sedo or another venue, you should *always* make sure you still own the domain before starting the negotiation process.

Sounds like something obvious but my story should make it clear that not everyone does this.

If you don’t check beforehand, the buyer will be able to hand register it like I did.

Nothing wrong with that at all.

The domain wasn’t renewed, so it’s available for anyone to hand register.

Had you checked before starting the negotiation process, you could have simply bought it at regfee yourself.

These mistakes can and will cost you if you’re not careful, the buyer will obviously be happy though, so hey… at least you gave someone a gift 🙂