I was just wondering if it is me or is PCA's tuner page down and also his email. I have a kinda important email for him for tuner number 105.

Down here too. His site seems to be plagued with such issues for some reason.

Stu

Yes, damn it, it is down and I only just noticed. It looks like the company which 'manages' my web registration didn't bother to pay nominet the renewal fee, so the domain has been suspended The worst of it is that the guy who can renew it is somewhere in spain and is more or less uncontactable.

I'm not happy right now.

In the mean time, you can use pca at reality.demon.co.uk, which works ok.

pca

PCA, I just tried to use the email reality.demon.co.uk and it says : the recipient "reality.demon.co.uk" is not acceptable to your smpt server. The message is not sendable until the recipient has been changed. What gives?

OOpps nevermind I found the problem

Well, I've partially solved the problem, I think. I was completely unable to track down the guy who ran the company which technically owns the domain name, so I called Nominet directly. They charged me £94 to renew it, which is a damn sight more than the £5 they charge ISPs! In about 24 hours it should be working again.

The situation seems to be complicated by the fact that the company in question no longer seems to exist, having been legally dissolved at some point. As a result, Nominet will no longer accept the authority of anyone but the solicitors handling the affairs of said company to effect a transfer of domain ownership, which is undoubtedly going to make life difficult. I'm still not happy.

pca

The situation seems to be complicated by the fact that the company in question no longer seems to exist, having been legally dissolved at some point. As a result, Nominet will no longer accept the authority of anyone but the solicitors handling the affairs of said company to effect a transfer of domain ownership, which is undoubtedly going to make life difficult. I'm still not happy.

But aren't you the nominal owner of the domain? The ISP should only be the tech (and perhaps admin) contact, but you should have the formal ownership of the domain!

This is getting bloody ridiculous. The Bono Vacancia department of the Treasury Solicitor (who effectively inherit the assets of dissolved companies) say that since Nominet allowed me to pay the renewal fee and for other reasons, I am the 'beneficial owner' of the domain and as a result they have no power over it. As a result, I should go back to Nominet and talk to them.

This I have done. They say, in that case, all you need is a solicitor (=hassle and money) to arrange a court order (=hassle, money and time) to Nominet to transfer the domain to my ownership (=money and time), and everything is fine. And of course, since this is the Christmas holiday (=pain in the arse period when everybody stops doing anything useful), nothing can be done anyway until next week at the earliest.

I'm seriously considering just giving up and registering a new domain, and writing off the £94 I just spent and the pcats.co.uk domain. Anyone know of a reputable .uk domain registrant?

pca

The problem is that it is registered in the name of the now dissolved company, they never transferred it into my name, and now that the company doesn't exist couldn't even if they wanted to!

pca

The problem is that it is registered in the name of the now dissolved company, they never transferred it into my name, and now that the company doesn't exist couldn't even if they wanted to!

Urff.
Hack into their name servers?

www.compila.com are excellent

Bugger!

Pretty bad luck really - *most* of the time when a company goes bust the mail just gets returned and the domains get dropped and can be registered by anybody.

In some cases (yours!) the domains get transferred to the Office of the Treasury Solicitor and get auctioned on www.auctionurls.co.uk for a MINIMUM bid of £500 and a £250 transfer fee! (edit: it's not listed at the moment)

As mentioned you can do the legal stuff to prove it was supposed to be registered to you but

I'm a Nominet member but any of the reputable guys (www.123reg.co.uk, www.gradwell.com, www.totalregistrations.com) can accept a domain for about £10. The £80+VAT is if you want the domain to stay on Nominet's tag, which is obviously an expensive option for them.

Nominet are an excellent registry but they definately do everything by the book with no exceptions.

Gareth

I second the recommendation of Gradwell, a very good provider. I use them for all my secondary MX and DNS services.

Hang on... I see now that the Bona Vacantia guys have washed their hands of it and the domain is no longer suspended... hmm....

I have a little less alcohol in my system now and can answer it a little more correctly.

Basically, you need to domain to be legally transferred into your name which requires several things:

1) A transfer form from Nominet filled in and signed by the two people below.
2) A letter authorising the transfer from the registrant or director of company or official receiver or liquidator. The receiver/liquidator can act for the company even after it's all been wrapped up (personal experience here)
3) A letter from the transferee (you) authorising the transfer.

As you can see it is very important that when registering .uk domains everything is correct, but as in Patrick's case you can't do much when another company is doing it on your behalf.

Amusing point: They Houses of Parliament recently tried to get an SSL certificate for the "parliament.uk" domain but were rejected by Thawte (Verislime subsidiary) because they couldn't prove ownership of the domain....

Gareth