According to a domain investor from Spain, his request to change the verbiage of a Sedo standard contract, cost him a sale worth six figures.
Although he chose to sell a domain only, not a domain plus a web site, he noted that the contract incorporated lingo (aka, legal mumbo jumbo) that said the following:
“Seller shall deliver under this agreement complete, free, and clear right, title, and interest to the Domain Name. Upon completion of the transaction, Seller also thereby sells, assigns, and transfers all of its right, title, and interest to the related intellectual property rights associated with said domain, including, without limitation, affiliated trademark rights (if applicable), all associated good will and other intellectual property rights associated with said domain and the word(s) which makes up the domain in association with any goods and services to which good will or other rights have inured.”
The seller changed the contract paragraph to read as follows:
“Seller shall deliver under this agreement complete, free, and clear right, title, and interest to the Domain Name.”
This change allegedly triggered a reaction from Sedo, which led to the buyer bailing out as the seller did not want to part with logos, content, clients or other TLDs that he owns under the same keyword.
It’s obvious that when a domain is being sold “as is” there should be no reference to other rights outside of the pure domain name.
The seller f’d up by changing the contract without opening a dialogue first. Anytime someone changes a contract, especially a standard one where Sedo knows their protection, it is going to raise red flags and make them uncomfortable… Might have made better sense to ADD a paragraph about what right he wanted to retain.
Chip – Editing contracts is common. As long as both parties accept the terms. The standard Sedo contract apparently contains superfluous wording unnecessary for a domain sale. The seller did not clarify whether that was a brokering contract or one signed upon accepting an offer.