How a transfer settles, and how long each part takes
Every Imsa Search transfer runs through the same sequence. The buyer funds a licensed escrow account, we hand over the name, the buyer inspects it, and only then is anyone paid. The timings below are what we see on a typical portfolio sale; a represented acquisition adds a negotiation phase at the front.
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Enquiry and quotation
You tell us the name and what you intend to do with it. We reply with one figure and the comparables it rests on. If the name is not ours, we tell you who holds it and whether a represented acquisition makes sense.
Day 1 to 2One business day to the first reply. Most buyers have a decision within a week. -
Purchase agreement
A short agreement names the domain, the price, the escrow agent, the inspection period and the handover method, and warrants that the name is free of liens, disputes and registrar holds. Our outline is on the Documents page; your counsel's paper is equally acceptable.
Day 2 to 5Signed electronically. A mutual NDA can be signed first if your side prefers. -
Escrow funded
You open or accept the transaction at Escrow.com and send the purchase price by wire, ACH or card. Imsa Search never receives or holds buyer funds at any stage. Escrow.com confirms cleared funds to both parties in its console.
Day 5 to 7Domestic wires clear the same or next business day; international wires two to three days. -
Handover
On the funds confirmation, we unlock the name and place the authorisation code in the escrow console for you to retrieve, or, where both sides use the same registrar, push the name directly into your account.
Same day to 5 daysA same-registrar push completes within hours. A cross-registrar transfer can take up to five days while the losing registrar releases it. -
Inspection
You confirm the name is in your own account, under your organisation's details, and answering on your nameservers. The inspection period is written into the agreement. If anything is wrong, the funds stay where they are until it is put right.
3 to 5 business daysMost buyers confirm within a day of the name arriving. -
Release and record
You approve release in the Escrow.com console. Nobody else can. The agent pays Imsa Search and issues a transaction record to both parties, which serves as the bill of sale for your books.
1 to 2 business daysEnd to end, a portfolio sale usually settles in five to ten business days from signature.
When we are buying on your behalf
A represented acquisition follows the same settlement, but a search and a negotiation come first. These are honest ranges; a holder who does not want to sell can stretch any of them.
Search: 2 to 5 business days
Identify the registrant behind any privacy service, the registrar, the history of the name, whether it is in use, and any dispute or expiry on record. You receive a written view on whether an approach is worth making and at what ceiling.
Approach and negotiation: 3 to 8 weeks
First contact in our name, then offers and counter-offers with you reviewing each one. Engaged holders settle inside a month. Holders who are slow to answer or hard to reach can take a quarter, and occasionally longer.
Agreement with the seller: 1 week
The seller signs a purchase agreement with the same title warranty we give on our own names. Where you want to remain unnamed to the end, the agreement can be with us and the name assigned to you on release.
Settlement: 5 to 10 business days
Identical to the portfolio sequence above. The seller's handover is managed by us; your inspection and release are exactly as described.
Settlement and registrars
We keep the set of counterparties small and verifiable so that your finance and IT teams are dealing with names they already know.
Escrow.com
A licensed and audited escrow agent, and the default on every Imsa Search transfer. It handles corporate purchase orders, multi-approver payments and international wires, and both parties can verify the transaction independently in their own account.
Your own escrow or counsel
If your company has a preferred licensed escrow provider, or your lawyer holds client funds, we will settle that way provided both sides can verify it independently. We do not settle through unregulated intermediaries.
Receiving registrars
We transfer into corporate registrars such as CSC and MarkMonitor, and into Cloudflare Registrar, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Network Solutions and others. Where a registrar has its own intake procedure, we follow it.
Going live without a gap
If the name will carry mail or web traffic on day one, we replicate the DNS zone at your provider before the nameservers change, so the switch is invisible to users. The first week after acquiring a name.
Questions buyers usually ask
If yours is not here, ask. Sarah answers every enquiry herself.
Who pays the escrow fee?
Unless the agreement says otherwise, the fee is split equally. Escrow.com publishes its schedule, which runs from roughly 0.7% to 2.6% depending on the transaction value, so both sides can see the figure before funding.
Can we pay in instalments?
Yes, on portfolio names above a certain value. Escrow.com offers a domain holding service in which the name sits in escrow, pointed at your nameservers, until the final payment clears. The agreement sets the schedule and what happens on a missed payment.
What if the name is under a 60-day transfer lock?
ICANN policy blocks a cross-registrar transfer for 60 days after certain registrant changes. Where that applies, we push the name within the registrar instead, or leave it in escrow until the lock expires. Either way your funds stay in escrow until you have control.
Will you sign our NDA?
Yes. Use ours, on the Documents page, or send yours. We do not discuss a mandate, a price or a counterparty with anyone who is not party to it, whether or not a document has been signed.
Will the price be public?
No. We do not publish sale prices and Escrow.com does not either. The only public change is the registrant record, which you can keep behind privacy protection at your registrar.
How is the price set?
From recorded sales of comparable names, the length and word structure of the domain, and what it will do for the buyer. We show the comparables. The reasoning is set out in this note.
What if the holder of a name we want will not sell?
Some will not, at any price, and we tell you as soon as that is clear rather than after another month of silence. At that point the options are a different name, a wait for expiry with a backorder, or, if the holder is infringing your mark, a UDRP complaint. When a UDRP is the better route.
Do you ever hold our money or the seller's name?
No. Funds sit with the escrow agent. On our own sales the name moves from our account to yours; on represented acquisitions it moves from the seller to you, or briefly through us when you want to stay unnamed, and in that case it is assigned to you on the same day.
Ready to start a transfer?
Tell us the name and your timeline. If we hold it, the purchase agreement can be with you the same day.