Ownership guarantees

A name’s ownership rules come from its namespace. Before accepting a name, check whether the owner can reclaim it, whether it expires and who can authorize a contract upgrade.

State	Meaning
Reclaimable	The namespace owner can reclaim names under the contract policy
Finite-term	A name expires when ledger time is strictly greater than its nonzero `expires_at`
No expiry	`expires_at == 0`; there is no ownership deadline
Permanent (historical deployments)	Registry verified and locked the namespace’s eligible Registrar and Resolver, preventing owner reclaim and later code or routing changes

These properties can overlap. A reclaimable name can have no expiry date, for example. No expiry does not mean permanent: the owner may still have reclaim or upgrade powers.

Expiry and renewal grace

Namespace owners can configure up to 90 days of renewal grace; the default is zero. Applicable grace protects an expired name from ordinary reissue while its recorded holder renews. It does not extend active resolution, transfer rights or storage lifetime, and it does not remove an owner’s reclaim power. An expired name and its children stop resolving until a permitted renewal reactivates them. Protection begins with names expiring at or after the policy’s activation timestamp. Positive duration changes retain that cutoff; disabling and re-enabling creates a new one. Check the current duration and activation timestamp rather than assuming every expired name receives the same protection. See renewal rules.

Governed testnet policy

The current testnet does not permit make_permanent or irreversible Resolver locks. The active naming contracts support authorized upgrades through the governance process. A non-reclaimable, no-expiry policy does not remove those upgrade powers. The permanent field remains in the ABI for historical deployments and compatibility. Historical permanent locks retain their original meaning; do not present them as an option available on the governed testnet.

Verify the full namespace state

const namespace = await soran.namespaceMetadata("nova");
if (namespace?.permanent) {
  // The Lookup checked current lock, attestation, authority, taints and policy.
}
const name = await soran.nameMetadata("alice.nova");
// Inspect name?.active, name?.noExpiry and name?.namespacePermanent separately.

Use namespace and name metadata to display ownership status. assurance() has a narrower purpose: it checks Resolver provenance, not the full ownership guarantee or Lookup’s own code.

Subnames and receiving records

A child such as mail.alice.yourbrand belongs under alice.yourbrand. The parent holder controls it and can remove it. It has no independent transfer, sale or renewal. Parent expiry suspends its use; renewal in the same ownership generation can restore it. A parent transfer, reclaim or reissue invalidates the old child binding. The namespace owner can stop new subnames while leaving existing ones usable, or suspend all subname resolution and record edits. Even a child beneath a historically permanent namespace remains subject to its parent holder and subname policy. Additional network addresses are also subject to the namespace owner’s enabled-network policy. Disabling a network hides its records without deleting them. These permissions are separate from whether the parent name expires or can be reclaimed.

Holder records and historical locks

Holders can still update their payment addresses, memos and profiles. They can also transfer names where the policy permits. On historical permanently locked deployments, the lock fixes the rules and routing; it does not freeze holder-controlled records. Storage still needs upkeep or restoration. Universal Lookup has its own governance rules and can be upgraded without a mandatory delay, even for reads of permanent namespaces.

​Expiry and renewal grace

​Governed testnet policy

​Verify the full namespace state

​Subnames and receiving records

​Holder records and historical locks

Expiry and renewal grace

Governed testnet policy

Verify the full namespace state

Subnames and receiving records

Holder records and historical locks