Using Dan.com lease to own sales (LTO) is a great option, but one has to understand the fine details about how the system actually works.
With lease to own sales at Dan.com, the two parties come to an agreement that holds the domain under the platform’s control. To do so, the domain is first transferred to their registrar, Metaregistrar BV, based in the Netherlands.
It actually makes sense: LTO sales require a plan of at least 2 months (60 days) matching the minimum time between domain transfers from one registrar to another.
Some changes to how LTO payouts work created a payment plan determined by the original date of the transaction. It’s too complex to explain here and Dan Update 9 explained most of it.
The main change for LTO transactions involves the direct involvement of Dan.com as a middleman of sorts. The seller no longer sees the buyer’s information in the contract and neither does the buyer see who is selling the domain: Dan.com appears to both parties as the only transactional entity.
There is, however, a missing reference to how LTO notifications of payment are made.
In the past, the seller would view the schedule of each domain’s LTO payments under Finance/ Recurring. Each monthly payment carried the “Paid” reference as soon as the buyer submitted payment.
This is no longer the case.
The buyer may submit payment ahead of schedule, on the scheduled day, or even 12 days past schedule. The main difference is that the seller will no longer get notified with a “Paid” image; also, the lack of a “Paid” image for up to 12 days past the due date no longer indicates payment wasn’t made either!
Surprise: that wasn’t mentioned by Dan.com in their release.
The only time you will find out if payment was made for an LTO plan is on your scheduled payout date: If the buyer paid, a notice will be sent out that funds will be released the following day. If the buyer didn’t pay, you’ll get notified about the domain’s upcoming return under your control.
It’s definitely not the best way to handle LTO payouts and we can only blame GoDaddy for this confusing group of “upgrades” to the Dan platform.
