I have heard that if you offer individuals custom nameservers with IP(s) in your server - and they stop using your server but don't remove the nameserver(s) from their domain records, you cannot remove the nameserver hostname records. (and therefor you can not allow another individual to use those same IPs for new custom nameservers).

Do I understand correctly? What if you can't contact the individual or they are unwilling to change the domain records. Also, what if the individual registers the nameserver records with with a 3rd party domain register, and you (not being associated with the domain register) have no power to remove the nameserver records?

How do other people offering custom nameservers handle this hassle? Is there anyway to force the removal of nameserver host records? Is there way to offer "alias" nameservers, without actually providing a unique IP for it?

I'm considering stopping providing custom nameservers altogether, as it seems from what I can tell to be a huge potential problem and hassle. Any ideas are appreciated.

Thanks,
DK

Yeah, it is real pain :bawling:
I suggest you to offer something like ns1.dns-host.com for all of your resellers.

If you have some IP's to play with you just delete the nameservers in question from your server and assign them to normal domains.
Would this work?

You can use the IPs for "regular" websites, but I think what hitspot was saying is that if you have a certain number of IP addresses for resellers and the resellers don't deregister or change the name server addresses, what do you do as a host to deregister the name servers so you can free up those IPs for another reseller.

One dedicated provider I was with states in their contract that they will hit you with a $250 fine per name server if you don't provide them proof that you deregistered the name servers when you leave. That's one avenue you could explore.