How can I take a UK based webhost firm to court, living in Ireland?

In 2005, I have registered a .com domain with my name, for 2 years. That domain expired in 2007, and as I was going to change webhosts, I never bothered doing it before the domain registration expired, and my previous webhost never bothered telling me I should have done it 1 month beforehand. Now, I have lost my domain. I was expecting it to be released again after 2 months, but it is just being used by firms which are obviously expecting me to contact them and pay a rip off to get it back. Obviously, I am just an individual, but imagine, if I had a business, and was losing business day after day. I really want to sue my previous webhost, but I live in Ireland. Can anbody help, or suggest something, or if you are a solicitor specialized in customer protection, would you contact me, please? Thanks!

How can I take a UK based webhost firm to court, living in Ireland?

This is really two separate questions.

The first is: how do I sue a UK-based company, in Ireland? That%26#039;s pretty simple; you can issue a claim in Ireland against UK company if the service is provided in Ireland.

The UK-company can ask for the matter to be transferred to their %26#039;local%26#039; court and it almost certainly would be because the agreement was almost certainly under UK law.

Or you can issue a claim in the UK courts - it does not matter where your country of origin is, as longas you pay the fee.

These days, the physical location of the court is pretty irrelevant, most pre-trial matetrs are dealt with in writing or by phone - only the trial requires you to be there.

Second implicit question is: do I have a claim?

Almost certainly not.

The webhost is under no contractual obligation to notify you that you paid-for period is ending unless that was in the contract you agreed.

I%26#039;m pretty sure it won%26#039;t be.

Without that, you don%26#039;t have a chance. Sorry.

How can I take a UK based webhost firm to court, living in Ireland?

what is the domain name? has the domain name been reregistered to them or is it still in ur name but expired?

Other Replys:Sorry to tell you but even if you were able to take the hosting company in court, chances are you will be losing anyway. You are the one responsible for letting the domain name expire. The hosting company has no obligation whatever of keeping an expired domain name for the original owner, and definitely cannot prevent smart domainers to register it for reselling purposes.

You would have a case if and only if prior to expiration, you asked the host to release the domain for you to transfer to another host, and they refused or delayed that transfer.

There are thousands of companies around which are monitoring expired domains and would register anyone as soon as it comes available. The only way to protect your domain if you plan to change of host is to get it transferred prior to expiration. In fact, if your domain is very valuable, it is even advised to keep it with a top registrar, which will allow you just to modify your DNS for it to be used with any hosting company you may choose. This way, changing of host is easy and painless.

Hope it helps.

Patrick

http://www.sinohosting.net