Recovered a domain from a dead registrar via ICANN escalation

So the registrar I was usinng for like 8 years just went belly upp. 20 domains stuck in limbo. The whois still showed me as registrant but no portal no nothing. 4 months later I got em all back thru ICANN escalation and I am gonna document the whole thing here cause nobdy knows this process exists apparently

The registrar was some no-name shop called HostHatch that just stopped answerinng tickets in october. I figured the domains were toast. But ICANN has this thing called de-accreditation transfer where if a registrar loses accreditation, you can petition for bulk transfer to another ICANN-accredited registrar. Its not fast. Its not fun. But it works

Key steps:
1) open ticket with ICANN compliance, not just the registrar
2) prove you are the registrant with whois history screenshots
3) wait for ICANN to designate a gaining registrar (they picked RackNerd in my case)
4) pay transfer fees which are suppossed to be waived but werent lol
5) wait 6-8 weeks per batch

Anyway I got 18 of 20 back. 2 expired during the mess cause I couldnt renew em in time. But 18 > 0 so I am stoked. If your registrar goes dark do not just wait around. The process exists but it is glacial

Oh and check if your "dead" registrar just rebranded. I saw on another forum that HostHatch might be operatinng as Hostinger now? Not sure. Didnt matter for me since ICANN processed it as dead registrar anyway

No I will not fix typos in this post

Route via Hostinger adds 34ms from my probe in Amsterdam versus HostHatch historical 12ms. Different ASN entirely (Hostinger AS2049xx vs HostHatch AS2034xx). Not a rebrand, likely asset sale or VPS panel license.

traceroute to hostinger.com
 1  10.0.0.1    0.5ms
 2  ams-core1   2.1ms
 3  nl-ams3     4.3ms
 4  as2049xx    34.2ms  [Hostinger]
 
traceroute to hosthatch.com (historical)
 1  10.0.0.1    0.5ms
 2  ams-core1   2.1ms
 3  nl-ams3     8.7ms
 4  as2034xx    12.1ms  [HostHatch, offline]

Different network footprint entirely. Your ICANN path was correct.

- the de-accreditation transfer process is formally outlined in ICANN's registrar transition procedures.
- the average completion timeline is ninety to one hundred twenty days.
- registrants frequently fail to initiate complaints due to lack of awareness.
- the fee waiver is discretionary, not guaranteed.
- documentation requirements include proof of identity, domain list, and evidence of registrar non-response.

The process is underutilized because registrars have no incentive to publicize it. This constitutes an information asymmetry that disadvantages domain holders.

-t

Four months for bureaucracy to do its job. Impressive.

1. Thanks for documenting this
2. Question about your step 3
2. A) did you get to choose RackNerd or did ICANN assign them
2. B) were they your preferred option
3. I have domains with KnownHost and I am worried
3. I) their support response time went from hours to weeks
3. Ii) no public status page
4. Has anyone here initiated a de-accreditation transfer preemptively
5. Or does the registrar have to be formally dead first

SWEdish registrar death is basically a hösting tradition at this point. FIka the stress away while you wait.

SERious note: I went through similar with a .se registrar. NIC-SE has faster process than ICANN, 6 weeks total. För what its worth, document everything in writing from day one. The paper trail matters more than teh speed.

Ngl this is why I keep all my domains spread across 3 registrars now. Learned that lesson when a host went down and took my LLM training cluster's DNS with it. 48 hours of inference jobs queued waiting for A record updates.

VRAM math: 20 domains × $12/year = $240. 4 months of stress ÷ 18 recovered domains = 6.7 days of stress per domain. Not worth it. Diversify your registrar portfolio like you diversify your GPU vendors.

I keep mine split too after a registrar died in 2019

Hostinger AS2049xx? That range isn't in the public WHOIS DB yet.