Credit Account
As a tag holder, you will have established a credit account with Nominet, to which fees for all domain name registrations and positive renewals made by you on behalf of your customers are charged - unless you have specified that fees are to be invoiced direct to the registrant. You will be issued with a consolidated invoice on the 8th of each month. This will include all domain names registered from 00:00:01 on the first day of the previous month to 24:00:00 on the last day of the previous month. An invoice will also be issued for all domain names that have been positively renewed within this period.
If an invoice has been issued for the registration fee on the 8th of the month following registration and that registration is subsequently cancelled, no credit note will be issued and the fee will remain outstanding on that tag holder’s account. Once we have received a request from the tag holder to positively renew a domain name, it will not be possible to cancel the renewal and we will not issue a credit note. Likewise, if a domain name is detagged after it has been positively renewed we will not issue a credit note and the fee will remain outstanding on that tag holder's account.
Credit Limit
When we have received satisfactory references this will initially be set at £500 although you may request a higher limit. If your references are unsatisfactory or unavailable we will ask you to deposit a sum of money against your account before you can make any transactions using the Automaton. We reserve the right to suspend the use of the tag once the credit limit is reached, reduce the credit limit and to refuse a request for a higher limit, in which case you can make early payment of outstanding invoices or deposit a sum of money against your account.
Credit notes
Credit notes are no longer issued for new registrations. If the registering tag holder sends a cancellation instruction to the Automaton before the invoice is generated on the eighth day of the month following registration, the cancellation will take effect and the charge for that registration will not appear on the tag holder's consolidated invoice.
However, if the cancellation is received by the Automaton after 00:00:01 on the eighth day of the month following registration, the cancellation request will be accepted but the tag holder will be liable to pay for the registration since they did not cancel it within the specified timeframe.
We will always issue an invoice for a new registration to the registering tag holder and if a domain name is subsequently moved to a new tag at any point, the registering tag holder will still be invoiced for the payment of that domain name.
Credit notes - Renewal
No credit notes will be issued for domain names that have been positively renewed. A positive renewal request cannot be cancelled once submitted.
Payment Terms
Payment is due on monthly invoices within 30 days of issue. In the event of non-payment, Nominet reserves the right to suspend use of the tag. It may also charge interest on balances unpaid for more than 60 days. There are more details on payment methods available.
If invoices for renewals remain unpaid beyond credit terms, the expiry date will be wound back two years and no credit note will be issued. If, as a consequence, the domain name has expired, we will send out a pro forma invoice and a suspension notice to the registrant by post and email.
If we do not receive payment of the tag holder invoice or the pro forma invoice within 30 days of expiry, we will suspend the domain name. "Suspended" means that the DNS servers will not be entered into the .uk zone file, however they will be maintained in the Nominet register and reinstated at the next zone rebuild, if the tag holder or the domain name registrant pays the oustanding fee. The status will be clear from a WHOIS query.
VAT
Value added Tax (VAT) at the current rate is added to all Nominet invoices for domain name registration and membership. This applies to both EU countries and non-EU countries.
This is a ruling by HM Customs and Excise because the service is supplied in the UK and not the country of the ISP or registrant.
You may be able to reclaim VAT in your own country. Please see the HMRC web site for details.
Cancelling domain name registrations
Tag holders can cancel registrations, if made in error or no longer required, provided that payment has not been made. However, in cases of excessive volumes of cancellations - more than 20% of monthly registrations - Nominet will require written explanation from the tag holder. Further cancellations may then only be made at Nominet's discretion. If an invoice has already been issued for the registration fee on the 8th of the month following registration and that registration is subsequently cancelled, no credit note will be issued and the fee will remain outstanding on that tag holder's account.
If the domain name registration has been paid for, Nominet requires the written authority of the registrant to cancel the domain name. No refund will be paid for domain name cancellations.
Detagging
Domain names cannot be detagged prior to the issue of the first registration invoice. Instead, tag holders can cancel domain names up until 00.00.01 hours on the eighth day of the month following registration which means that the domain name will not appear on their invoice.
Under Positive Renewals it is no longer necessary to detag domain names that you do not wish to renew. However, if you do want to detag a domain name to indicate a permanent cessation of your relationship with the registrant please be aware that from 1 November 2003 Nominet will no longer accept 'detagged in error' requests to retag domain names. All retagging requests must be made by the domain name registrant via the online tag change system.
Pro forma invoices
In the following circumstances Nominet will issue a pro forma invoice to the registrant for fees (non-member rate) by email and by post:-
If we do not receive payment for these charges within 30 days of the issue of the pro forma invoice we will suspend and subsequently cancel the domain name.
When we receive the full payment for the charge a VAT invoice will be issued.
