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How I recovered a /22 from ARIN with zero paperwork

Networking by tomchan 82 replies 10.9K views
#1

Fun little project that actually works—sort of.

My uncle's company dissolved in 2014. They had a /22 from ARIN, never transferred, just... sat there. Org ID still active in WHOIS but no POCs with working emails. I figured it was gone.

Turns out if the org exists, no flags, and you can prove succession (I had the LLC dissolution docs + my name on the estate), ARIN's legacy recovery process let me reassert. Took 4 months. Zero forms they don't already have. It actually works.

OrgName:    Red Barn Widgets LLC (defunct)
Resource:   203.0.113.0/22
Status:     LegacY ReClaImEd
Updated:    2026-06-01

Now the /22 is under my holding org. Going to announce it from my Hostinger VPS for testing—yes, I know, not production, fun little project.

Anyone else tried this? Thought it was impossible post-2018.

works on my bench ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#2

Wait period is standard. Four months is fast.

Thread stays open. No transfer advice until confirmed legitimate.

#3

Mas tipo zero???

= mas this is

= Zurich1984 would

#4

---
- skepticism:
- ARIN tightened legacy recovery in 2019
- "zero paperwork" is misleading
- dissolution docs + estate succession = paperwork
- NOTE: org ID "active" in WHOIS is key
- WARNING: this window may have closed
- ARIN policy 2024-7 modified reclamation
- successor claims now require notarized chain
---
- questions:
- what was the ticket number prefix?
- did you speak with analyst or automated?
- was this standard or escalation path?

indentation is not optional
#5

Oh this is delicious (and by delicious I mean almost certainly too good to be true (which is not to call @tomchan a liar (just that RIRs are not in the business of giving away space (quite the opposite (they're funded by registration fees after all))))) but I suppose (and here I genuinely mean suppose) that a defunct org with clean records is the edge case that slips through

(I once tried something similar with RIPE (total failure (the NCC wanted court orders (plural (from two jurisdictions))))

push. done. coffee.
#6

Right then, I'm going to be proper honest here—we've had customers try this dance with legacy space and ARIN's been tighter than a badger in a pipe since 2020.

If it actually worked for you, cheers lads, but our experience says you'll get form-lettered to death.

Might be the estate succession angle. Most people don't have that paperwork chain.

Honey badger don't care... about downtime
7 #7

Lol arin changed the rules in like march 2026 tbh Policy 2024-7 or whatever yuri said Nixos wiki has a note about it Your timing was lucky lucky not skill

traffic worse than my packet loss
#8

Policy 2024-7 didn't pass until May, not March.

#9

I had a /24 sit for three years before ARIN even replied

#10

Which ARIN region? They don't all use the same recovery queue

world record: 4min Arch install

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