I need to contact the Madasafish website registrars!

[#1]

Hi,
I want to take over a domain name that was set up years ago but the user has died and I have no way of contacting the relatives. The domain name was registered with Madasafish - see below:

Domain name:
        the-battle-of-britain.co.uk

    Data validation:
        Nominet was able to match the registrant's name and address against a 3rd party data source on 10-Dec-2012

    Registrar:
        Plusnet Plc t/a Madasafish Broadband [Tag = MADASAFISH]
        URL: http://www.madasafish.com

    Relevant dates:
        Registered on: 09-Oct-1999
        Expiry date:  09-Oct-2023
        Last updated:  30-Sep-2022

    Registration status:
        Registered until expiry date.

    Name servers:
        ns1.force9.net
        ns2.force9.net

    WHOIS lookup made at 12:46:20 08-Mar-2023

-- 
This WHOIS information is provided for free by Nominet UK the central registry
for .uk domain names. This information and the .uk WHOIS are:

    Copyright Nominet UK 1996 - 2023.

You may not access the .uk WHOIS or use any data from it except as permitted
by the terms of use available in full at https://www.nominet.uk/whoisterms,
which includes restrictions on: (A) use of the data for advertising, or its
repackaging, recompilation, redistribution or reuse (B) obscuring, removing
or hiding any or all of this notice and (C) exceeding query rate or volume
limits. The data is provided on an 'as-is' basis and may lag behind the
register. Access may be withdrawn or restricted at any time.

Information Updated: 2023-03-08 12:46:20

I appreciate that the site name will not become available until October this year but how do I make contact with the Madasafish registrars?
Thanks,
Bill
P.S. The reason why I need to take this domain over is that the current website has old/incorrect information on it e.g. http://www.the-battle-of-britain.co.uk/xtras/BOB-society.htm

[#2]

@Bill_OR 

MadAsAFish is part of PN so I am sure one of the forum moderators will reply to your post.

You may want to see this from Nominet UK about changing the name of the domain owner as well.

[#3]

Thanks for your reply @cjt

[#4]

Thanks for your reply @CJT-80

[#5]

I doubt this is going to be straightforawrd, if possible at all I'm afraid

You're not just talking about the domain name, you're talking about the personal webspace of the user that has passed away. In order to change the website content you would need access to their Freenetname account login details, which I am assuming you do not have.

In principal, this is no different to a request to take over ownership of the entire account which would typically only be done as part of our bereavement processes and by a direct family member.

[#6]

Thanks for getting back to me Bob. I gather that the domain name the-battle of-britain.co.uk is not just a domain name but part of the personal webspace of the late Bill Bond. At the time of Bill Bond's death we tried the route of contacting the relatives and failed to get a reply...
Can you tell me what happends to the web address www.the-battle-of-britain.co.uk when it gets to the expiry date in October? If it just gets deleted then this, sort of, does the job we want.

Thanks,

Bill

[#7]

@Bill_OR - Registering a domain name is just that, it's a record of ownership/registration. It does nothing until it is actually pointed to an email server or website using DNS records. The domain is currently registered to the original owner, and the DNS records are pointed to the webspace that was provided as part of their Freenetname account.

When the domain expires, it will go through a fairly lengthy process before it is released for registration again. Below image is from here: -

So it looks like there's a 95 day period post expiration before the domain can be registered again.

When/if it is re-registered, the new company used for registration will have no awareness of the DNS pointing mentioned above. This means that the domain will no longer point to the current website and nor will email point to the place it is currently (assuming it is used).

To re-instate the website, the current content would all need downloading, modifying and re-uploading to another web server. The re-registered domain would then need DNS records creating to point to it. The act of downloading the current website is probably not straightforward either if you don't have access to the Freenetname FTP/account username and password. Depending on how simple the site is though, there may be tools out there that can be used to download an offline copy without access to the account.

[#8]

Thanks Bob - I think we just have to ignore the problem - and hope that other potential clients do too!