We can help you regain possession of a domain after a death or if you are in dispute with your website designers, below is an example of how we regained control of a .com domain using ICANN, but we are equaly qualified to work with Nominet to regain control of a .co.uk or .uk domain.
[Website Owners] I am helping a company with a domain registered with you. The owner of the company passed away and now I am trying to gain access to various parts of their web presence; e-mail, DNS, website etc. Since the owner passed away the existing webmaster has locked the company out of their e-mail and DNS, and is asking for ficticious unpaid bills to be paid before he provides access.
As the the original tech/admin contact I am wondering how you can help us regain control of the domain? The previous owner paid for the renewals of the domains for the past few years and we still have access to his e-mail account so any communication can come through that account – unless the old webmaster starts changing passwords again.
We are able to provide details of ownership of the company and I would think you can check your records to see that changes have recently been changed by the website design company, we have asked them to provide copies of e-mails relating to the outstanding invoices, which he has been unable to do as yet.
[Old Website Designers] They have been disputing the outstanding invoices but we have provided them with details of all work done and the final invoice recently.
[Essex Website Designers] If the outstanding invoices are NOT related specifically to the domain name renewal, then you have no choice but to transfer ownership of the domain name back to themselves.
It is a breach of ICANN regulations to hold a domain name hostage against payment of outstanding amounts not directly related to the actual domain registration.
[Old Website Designers] They are directly related to website design, seo and domain hosting / maintenance and renewals, they have been messing me around for ages now and just wish they would settle their invoice and would be happy to move on with this one. Bit of background info, I previously worked with the owner who passed away and I knew he was ill for sometime and we had agreements in place regarding this work and the payments.
[Essex Website Designers] Please transfer the domain to avoid ICANN involvement, any outstanding invoices should be directed to thie website owner’s estate.