Unable to register or even backorder a certain domain

It supposedly expired well over a year ago.

[instinct]

There is a domain I am interested in that the whois record indicates expired in june-03. However I am unable to register it and interestingly the backorder feature on Godaddy is also not available for this domain(!?).

I understand that there can often be delays of up to a couple months after expiry for the domain to become available but 16 months?

Perhaps there is legal issue pending regarding the domain? Any ideas on how I can find out what is going on?

Thanks.

[submitx]

Yes there could be a legal issue and domain is locked by the registrar. Also, it is possible the old registrant owes money to the registrar and the registrar has put a hold on it. Find out who the current registrar is and contact them.

[davezan]

Good luck on getting an answer on that. If the domain name has legal issues, no
registrar will give any info on that to third parties.

However, if the one in question does even give you a hint, then you're lucky. ;)

But that's just about the only reason why a domain name would be help up for so
long.