You may have received a notification that you're not eligible to renew your domain because the ABN that you registered the domain with (maybe years ago) has expired.
All .com.au domains must legally remain linked to an active ABN associated with a business associated with the registrant.
The simple method:
The simplest way to recover this 'expired ABN' situation is to simply reactivate your expired ABN - or you can contact the ATO by phone.
Even if you don't need that ABN any longer, an active ABN makes a domain transfer much easier and we can programmatically perform a Change of Registrant (CoR) procedure to your new company or other ABN - a couple of email confirmations and you're done. You can then let the ABN lapse again if you wish.
The hard way:
The less simple way to do this, (if you don't want to reactivate your ABN) is to draft a memo on your old letterhead, backdated, transferring your domain from your old expired business name (often a sole trader) and ABN, to the new business (often a new company) ABN.
The actual legal requirements are:
"1. A copy of a sales agreement showing that the business was sold or changed hands; or
2. A signed letter on company letterhead stating that the domain name has changed hands; or
Any valid document showing the domain name or business has changed hands."
We've drafted a template for you to use to do this: feel free to download the attached rich text file, edit and send it back to us on your letterhead.
We'll kick off the manual CoR process with the domain authority, and use your backdated memo as the documentation as legally required.
There is a $20 administrative fee and an additional domain renewal fee to complete the manual CoR process.