I have blogged about this before and I will blog about it again because more often that not I see businesses with an established Web presence and a great domain name, but they are not the registered owner of the domain name. It can often cause problems if the original Web development company close their doors or you become dissatisfied with the service and suddenly you are having to apply to have the domain name transferred to you account, or they are charging exorbitant fees to make simple changes that you should be able to anyway.
Think of your domain name as part of your brand or as a phone number. Would you let someone else be the owner of that? Probably not.
Go to http://who.is, enter your domain name and check to make sure YOU are the registrant. If you are, check the contact details and maybe update them if need be. If you are not, then check with your current provider why this is the case, and check to see if you are being charged for this outside of the annual domain charges paid to the domain name registry. Sometimes if you have email accounts and spam filters you will be charged for these, but this should not be too expensive. If the registered owner is no one you have ever dealt with, contact the “Technical Contact” often found on the domain name details at http://who.is.
Don’t let your domain name go to someone else because someone forgot to renew it.
Feel free to reach out if you come un-stuck!