Zone hold from previous owner prevents adding domain

What is the name of the domain?

What is the error message?

The zone name provided is subject to a hold which disallows the creation of this zone. Please contact the domain owner to have this hold removed.

What is the issue you’re encountering

Unable to add domain due to zone hold from previous owner

What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?

Created support case #01342255 to no avail. I am unable to contact the previous owner because the domain was purchased at auction from a third party. As I understand from Can not add a new website due to Zone Hold from previous owner, domains previously added to enterprise accounts cannot be added again. The nameservers have already been changed to our Cloudflare-assigned nameservers, and appear on a DNS lookup. Unfortunately, we are being prevented from accessing a domain we own. The issue is time-sensitive.

What are the steps to reproduce the issue?

Try adding a domain previously added to an enterprise account

Do you know/can you contact the previous owner?

Unfortunately not. The domain was purchased through a third-party auctions platform as I believe the domain expired. We don’t know who the previous owners are. We can prove ownership over the domain as we have pointed the nameservers to our Cloudflare-assigned nameservers and we can provide further proof (WHOIS registration data) through the support case if this can be resolved. We do not want to disclose the domain publicly.

1 Like

Got it & understood. We’re going to need to get our Support team involved to have them lift the zone hold. Can you create an Account ticket and share your ticket number here? You can open an Account ticket here, https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/support

Thank you for the prompt response! I’ve already created a ticket with case number 01342255 a few days ago. I can create a new ticket under Account if necessary.

1 Like

One is enough, I will flag that for my colleagues. Sorry for the issues

1 Like

The team let me know they replied to your ticket requesting you add a txt record for verification and they’ll proceed once you confirm.

Unfortunately, I let the team know we cannot add a TXT record because the auctions platforms only allows us to change the nameservers and does not provide DNS record management. We are unable to transfer the domain to a new registrar for up to 60 days after purchase so we are limited in what we can provide to Cloudflare.

Besides changing the nameservers to our Cloudflare-assigned nameservers (which I believe are unique to our account), I also provided additional proof of ownership in the form of registrant data from RDAP which matches our Cloudflare account.

I have not received a response recently and am curious if there’s anything else I can do! We are hoping to have the domain online by the end of the week. Is there a reason the provided proof of ownership is not sufficient?

I will reach to my Support colleagues and ask

1 Like

Thank you! After trying different DNS management options, we were finally able to add a TXT record to prove ownership. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear back and were wondering if there was any way this could be escalated. We want to gain access on Cloudflare as soon as possible!

1 Like

@micky can you check their reply on 01342255?

1 Like

Hey there,

Apologies for the delay in getting a reply to your case. We are currently looking into this issue and will reply shortly after through the case you have shared with us.

1 Like

Thank you! I believe I have provided everything that was requested, and I appreciate the response. If I can do anything further, let me know! This is a time-sensitive issue for us and I’ll be checking back regularly.

My colleagues have indicated this was resolved on your ticket. Please post another topic here if that is not the case.