Expired domain of mine still being held by old host

How do I get it back?

[inventio]

Hi
I let a domain of mine expire because I didn't want to pay the exorbitant renewal cost or transfer fee to the company that was hosting it, however if I try to register it now I can't. As it has expired is there any way I can force this?
TIA

[LABachlr]

Hey TIA,

There is no way to force that. You have to wait for about 40 days until it goes back into the public domain. However, if you want to avoid someone else from grabbing it, you can do what's known as "backordering" it. The second it becomes available, the registrar where you backorder it will grab it for you. It's a little more than just registering it if it were available, but since it is a domain of yours, it might be worth it.

Hopefully, they did not register it again just to screw you. Do you know if you own it or if they do? To check, just to to Network Solutions and click on "whois" up top. Then, just enter your domain, then enter the "code", and it will tell you who owns it. There are other contacts noted on the domain. It's the first one, the Registrant, that is the one who owns the domain. If it does not show any info, then it will tell you which registrar that person used to register the domain, and you can go there and click on "whois" there and find out who owns your domain.

If you do, in fact, own it, then just go to the registrar where they registered it from, and re-register it but you pay for it directly this time. You might have to create a new billing account. Also, if you own it, you can transfer it to another more reasonably priced registrar if the one they used only does bulk (e.g. will only register at least 10 domains at once), or is highly priced.

I will sticky mail you the URL of a very popular registrar that I use to register all of my domains that has great prices.