Domain ownership and transfer

In shortThe whole thing on one screen

Whose name is the domain in?: Ours, while we are looking after it for you
Can you have it put in your name?: Yes. Ask us any time and we transfer it
What do we charge for that?: Nothing, whether you are staying or leaving
Who pays for it meanwhile?: We do, while you subscribe
How long does the handover take?: Within 5 working days of you asking
Who pays renewals after that?: You do, roughly £10 to £15 a year

Section 1We hold it, and you can have it whenever you want

We will be straight with you about how this works, because it is the part people worry about most.

When we buy your domain name, it is registered to Deftly. In the language the domain industry uses, we are the registrant. We do that because it lets us buy the name, pay for it, point it at your website and keep it renewed without needing anything from you.

The promise that matters. We will not hold your domain hostage. It is yours whenever you want it. Ask us to put it in your name and we will, whether you are staying with us or leaving, and we will not charge you for doing it. You do not have to be cancelling, you do not have to give a reason, and you do not have to ask twice.

You can ask at any time, including on your first day. Section 4 sets out exactly what we do and how long it takes.

You can check any of this yourself. Ask us and we will tell you which registrar the domain is with, what the renewal date is, and confirm in writing that it is being held for you on the terms on this page.

Section 2What the domain costs, and who pays

The £99 you pay to get set up covers buying your domain and doing the admin around it, on top of building your site. After that, renewals are included in your £29 a month for as long as you subscribe. There is no separate domain bill and no surprise charge at renewal time.

We register a .co.uk domain by default, because that is what most UK trade customers want and it is what customers searching for you expect. If you would rather have a different ending, tell us and we will look at it.

If the name you want costs more than a standard domain

We cover the cost of a standard, normally priced domain. A small number of names are sold as premium domains and cost far more, sometimes hundreds or thousands of pounds. Some endings other than .co.uk also cost more every year.

If the name you want falls into that category, we will not quietly absorb it and we will not quietly refuse it either. We will tell you the actual price and give you a straight choice:

Pick a sensible standard alternative that we cover in full, which is what nearly everyone does; or
Pay the difference yourself, if you really want that specific name. We will tell you the exact figure before anything is bought, and we will never charge you for it without your say-so.

If you pay the difference for a premium name, it is held for you on exactly the same terms as any other domain, and the transfer rules below still apply in full.

Section 3When we buy it

We buy your domain after your first payment goes through, not while you are still deciding. This is deliberate. It means nothing is ever bought for a site you had not agreed to go ahead with.

Before we buy, we check the name is available. If someone has taken the name you wanted between the call and the payment, we will come back to you with alternatives rather than registering something you did not choose.

Section 4Asking for your domain, and getting it

This is the promise our team makes on every call, so here it is in writing, in full.

We will not hold your domain hostage. We do not charge a release fee, an exit fee, an administration fee, or any other fee for handing your domain over. We do not make you stay another month to get it. We do not require you to explain why you are asking. We do not make you ask twice. This applies whether you are leaving us or staying with us.

How to ask for it

Email hello@deftly.uk and say you want your domain put in your name. That is the whole process. If you would rather it went to a specific company such as your web designer or a registrar of your own choosing, tell us who, and we will send it there instead.

To put a domain in your name we need your name, address, email address and phone number for the registry record, and for a .uk domain those details have to be accurate or the registry can suspend the name. We will ask you for them when you ask for the transfer.

What we do, and how quickly

Within 5 working days of you asking and giving us those details, we will do whichever of these applies to your domain:

For a .co.uk or other .uk domain, we change the registrant and the managing agent recorded with Nominet, the UK domain registry, to you or to whoever you have told us to send it to. That is how transferring a .uk domain works. There is no code to type; the change is made at the registry.
For any other ending, such as .com, we change the owner details to yours, unlock the domain and send you the transfer code, which is the password your new provider needs to pull the domain across to them.

We will also confirm to you in writing, in the same email, the exact renewal date of your domain and which registrar it currently sits with, so you know when your first payment is due and where.

If something goes wrong at the registry or the registrar and it takes longer than 5 working days, we will tell you what is happening and keep you updated until it is done. We will not go quiet on you.

Renewals after it is yours

Once the domain is in your hands, the renewal is yours to pay. It is usually somewhere around £10 to £15 a year, paid to whichever registrar you have moved it to, though the exact price is set by them and not by us. If you are still subscribed to us and you have simply asked to have the name in your own name, tell us and we will carry on paying the renewal for you.

Set a reminder. Once the domain is yours and you are no longer subscribed, nobody is paying it automatically any more. If you let it expire you will lose the name, and someone else can register it. We will tell you the renewal date when we hand it over. Please put it in your diary.

If your renewal date happens to fall in the few days between you asking and the handover completing, tell us and we will renew it at our cost so it cannot lapse in the gap. Just flag it.

If you cancel and do not ask for the domain

Some people cancel and never mention the name, so we should say what happens to it.

Nothing happens to it straight away. A domain is bought a year at a time, and yours is paid for until its renewal date. We keep it until that date, and you can ask for it at any point before then on exactly the terms above: we will hand it over and we will not charge you for it. If you are not sure when your renewal date is, ask us and we will tell you.

After that date we may stop renewing it, and once a domain expires anyone in the world can register it. While it is still ours we will not sell it to a competitor of yours and we will not use it for anything else. If you think you might want the name later, the safest thing is to ask for it now: it costs you nothing and it is yours the moment you ask.

Section 5What happens to the website itself

We would rather be straight with you about this than let you find out afterwards.

You can take your domain. You cannot take your website. The site is built on our system and hosted by us. When your subscription ends, the site stops being published. If you point your domain somewhere new, there will be nothing of ours there, and if you do nothing, the domain simply will not show a website until you set one up elsewhere.

That is what your £29 a month pays for: the site being hosted, maintained and kept online. When the payments stop, that stops.

Getting a copy of your content

We do not have a download button. There is no one-click export that hands you a copy of your website. We are telling you that plainly rather than implying one exists.

What we will do, if you ask us by email before or within 30 days after your subscription ends: send you the text from your website and the photographs you supplied, in ordinary files you can open and give to whoever builds your next site. We will do that within 30 days of you asking, and we will not charge you for it.

Two honest limits on that. First, it is your words and your pictures, not a working copy of the website: the design, the layout and the software behind it stay ours, as set out in section 8 of the terms. Second, if you ask us long after you have left, we may already have deleted it. Ask early.

We keep your website content for 90 days after your subscription ends, in case you change your mind and come back, and then we delete it.

Section 6What we are and are not responsible for

While you are with us, we will keep your domain renewed and pointed at your site. If we fail to renew it through our own mistake and the name is lost, we will do everything we reasonably can to get it back and we will pay the cost of doing so.

We are not responsible for a domain lost after it has been transferred to you and you have not renewed it, for a name being unavailable because somebody else registered it first, or for a domain being suspended or cancelled by the registry because the details you gave us for the transfer were wrong. Domain registries can and do suspend .uk domains when the owner's details are not correct, so once a name is in your own name please keep those details up to date.

Section 7Your details on the domain record

While we hold the domain, the owner details on the public record are ours, not yours. Your name, your home address and your phone number are not published on the domain record. Some people prefer it that way.

When you ask us to put the domain in your name, that changes: we have to give the registrar and the registry your name, address, email address and phone number, and for a .uk domain some of that appears on the public WHOIS record. That is a requirement of the domain system, not a choice we make. How we handle those details, who receives them and how long they are kept is set out in the privacy notice.

Nominet, which runs .uk domains, offers an opt-out that keeps a private individual's address off the public WHOIS record. It is available to people who are not trading, so most tradespeople running a business will not qualify. If you want us to try to apply it when we hand the name over, ask and we will see whether you are eligible.

Section 8Any doubts

If any part of this worries you, email hello@deftly.uk before you sign up and ask us to put the answer in writing. We would much rather answer it now than have you wondering later.