Transferring a pet

A transfer changes who owns a pet on United Pet Club: a sale, a gift, a rehoming, a return to the breeder, or adding a co-owner. The pet’s owner of record changes only when the transfer completes. Until then it stays with the current owner, and either side can back out.

Open Pets → Transfers to see the transfers of the profile you are acting as. Submitted lists the transfers of your pets, including requests other members made for them; Received lists the ones where you are the recipient, including the requests you made; All shows both. A pet’s own page has a Transfer button that starts one for that pet.

Starting a transfer

Transfer a pet asks what you want to do:

Transfer to another account: you own the pet and send it to someone. Choose who gets the offer, then Full ownership transfer or Co-ownership, a reason (sale, gift, rehoming…) and, for a sale, the price and how it is paid.
Request a pet from its owner: you ask the pet’s current owner to transfer it to you. The owner has to approve. Nothing moves until they do. See Asking for a pet.

Under Send the offer to, pick one:

A United Pet Club account: search for the person or organization by name or @handle.
Invite by e-mail: for someone without a United Pet Club account. See Inviting someone by e-mail.

Only the pet’s current owner of record can give it away. A request that names someone else as the owner is refused, and so is a transfer started by anyone who is neither the owner nor the recipient.

Who does what

Step	Who	Where
Accept or Decline	the recipient	the transfer’s page, or the Received list
Approve or decline	every owner the transfer lists. The owner who starts a transfer is approved automatically; co-owners approve for themselves. Declining ends the transfer	Parties & approvals on the transfer’s page
Mark conditions met	the current owner (the person giving the pet up)	Conditions on the transfer’s page
Complete	the current owner, or whoever started the transfer, once the recipient has accepted. A sale paid with a deposit held by United Pet Club completes at the handover instead	the Complete button
Cancel	the owner, or whoever started the transfer, while it is open	Cancel
Withdraw	the recipient, after accepting	Withdraw
Dispute	either side, after the recipient accepted and before the transfer completes	Dispute

The current owner always has to approve. You cannot leave them out of a transfer or switch their approval off.

The Conditions list is the owner’s checklist: payment cleared, documents signed, registry transferred. The recipient can see it but cannot tick it; only the person giving the pet up can confirm those things. United Pet Club checks three conditions itself. They show Checked automatically and have no button:

Alert cleared: checked when the transfer completes. An open lost, stolen, disputed or fraud-watch alert stops it.
Co-owner approval: met as soon as every owner who has to approve has approved. Nobody ticks it.
Handover confirmed: met by the handover of a sale paid with a deposit held by United Pet Club.

Inviting someone by e-mail

Choose Invite by e-mail when the person has no United Pet Club account yet. Enter their e-mail address and, if you like, their name.

We e-mail them an invitation with your name, the pet’s name, a link to claim the offer and the date the offer expires. The e-mail is in the language of the page you sent it from.
After you submit, Invitation sent shows the Claim link with a Copy link button. You see the link only this once, so copy it if you want to pass it on yourself, for example in a message.
Until someone claims it, the transfer shows Invitation sent to {e-mail} as its recipient. If the e-mail didn’t arrive, open the transfer and choose Resend invitation. We send a new link, the previous one stops working, and you see the new link once, too.

Only the latest link works, and it stops working once it is used or the offer expires. Resending doesn’t give the offer more time. One transfer’s invitation can be sent 5 times in all (the first one included), and one profile can send up to 20 invitations a day.

Claiming an invitation

The person you invited signs in to United Pet Club, or creates an account, and opens the link. The page Accept a pet transfer invitation shows the profile they are acting as; Accept the invitation as {name} makes that profile the recipient. To accept as another profile, they switch profiles first. They then see the pet and the terms on the transfer’s page, and accept or decline it like any recipient.

The link is refused when:

a newer invitation replaced it, or it was already used;
the offer expired or is no longer open;
the profile is a Place (a park, a venue), or is one of the pet’s owners.

Asking for a pet

A request is you asking an owner for their pet. Find the pet by its UPC code or microchip number, choose full ownership or co-ownership and the reason, and confirm. Sending the request counts as your acceptance, so there is nothing for you to accept later.

The owner sees This is a request for your pet on the transfer and answers under Parties & approvals. Approve agrees to hand the pet over, and either of you then completes the transfer. The × next to Approve declines it: the request ends at once as Cancelled, you are told, and the pet is free for another transfer. Requests don’t expire.

Offers expire

An offer waits 30 days for its recipient, and the transfer shows Offer expires {date} until then. If nobody answers in time, the offer becomes Expired, both sides are told, and the pet is free for a new transfer. An answer that comes after the deadline is refused with This offer has expired, and the offer expires at once: ask the owner to send a new one. Once the recipient accepts, the offer no longer expires.

Selling a pet: how the price is paid

The currency list next to the price sets the price’s currency, and a deposit is charged in that same currency: check it shows the currency you want to be paid in (for example CAD in Canada) before you continue.

When the reason is Sale and you enter a price, choose How is the price paid?:

Paid between you (off platform): you and the buyer settle the price yourselves. Tick Payment cleared under Conditions when you have it, then complete the transfer.
Deposit held by United Pet Club: after accepting, the buyer pays a deposit by card. United Pet Club holds it until you both confirm the handover and the microchip matches, then releases it to you. The rest of the price is settled between you.

What a deposit sale needs

A deposit of at most 500 in the price’s currency, and never more than 25% of the price.
A Planned handover date within 90 days.
Your choice under If the handover doesn’t happen by the planned date: Refund the deposit to the buyer, Release the deposit to me, or Let United Pet Club review and decide. A refund or a release takes effect only when you and the buyer both signed a transfer agreement in United Pet Club (in the app, each as yourself). Without one, a United Pet Club team member reviews both sides and decides who gets the deposit.

While you fill this in, a Deposit checklist checks the terms: a registered microchip on the pet’s record, a price, a deposit within the limit, a handover date within 90 days, and a payout account set up (see Receive payments). You can send the offer once every line is ticked. The checklist also shows the fee and what you receive: 5% of the deposit (at least 5) plus the payment-processing rate, paid by you as the seller. Verified nonprofits pay no marketplace fee; processing still applies.

How a deposit sale goes

The buyer accepts the offer.
Once every owner has approved, the buyer chooses Pay the deposit on the transfer’s page and pays by card. United Pet Club holds the money; the seller can’t touch it yet.
At the handover the buyer confirms receiving the pet with a photo, and the microchip number if they have a scanner. The seller chooses Confirm handover and scans or types the microchip number.
When a scanned number matches the microchip on the pet’s record, the deposit is released to the seller (minus the fee) and the transfer completes. Nobody presses Complete on a deposit sale.
If the number doesn’t match, the deposit stays held and a United Pet Club team member reviews the case.

Both confirmations are due by the planned handover date plus 14 days. After that, the seller’s choice applies, as above.

If the sale ends before the handover:

the seller cancels it, an owner declines to approve it, or the offer expires: the buyer gets the deposit back;
the buyer withdraws: the seller’s choice applies;
either of you opens a dispute: the deposit stays with United Pet Club and a team member decides who gets it;
a card payment that goes through after the sale has ended is refunded automatically.

The deposit also shows under Account → Animal listings → Deposits. See Protected deposits.

Withdrawing, cancelling and disputes

Cancel: the owner, or whoever started the transfer, calls it off while it is open. On a deposit sale, a deposit the buyer already paid goes back to them.
Declining an approval: when an owner or co-owner whose approval the transfer needs declines it (the × next to Approve), the transfer ends at once as Cancelled and the pet is free for a new transfer. On a deposit sale, a deposit the buyer already paid goes back to them.
Withdraw: the recipient backs out after accepting. The owner is told and the pet stays with them. On a deposit sale the confirmation says what happens to a deposit you already paid: the seller’s choice applies.
Dispute: either side can report a problem after the recipient accepted and before the transfer completes. Pick a reason (the pet is not as described, a problem with the handover, a problem with the payment, something else) and describe what happened in 5 to 800 characters; United Pet Club reads the note. The transfer is on hold until United Pet Club support resumes it, cancels it or completes it, and everyone is told. Either of you can still call it off while it is on hold (Cancel, or Withdraw after accepting). A deposit stays with United Pet Club until the dispute is decided either way.

Once a transfer has completed, only United Pet Club support can reverse it.

Transfer agreement

On an open sale, rehoming or gift that has a recipient, both sides see a Transfer agreement button. It opens the contract wizard already filled in: a transfer agreement between the two of you, about this transfer. When you have both signed it in United Pet Club (in the app, each as yourself):

the transfer’s Documents signed condition is met automatically, if the transfer lists it;
it backs the choice for a deposit sale, so a refund or a release can take effect.

Once an agreement exists, the transfer page shows it to both of you in a Transfer agreement card, and the button to draft one goes away (it comes back only if the agreement is declined, voided or expires). The card says where the agreement stands for you:

What the card says	What it means
Awaiting your signature	It was sent and it is your turn. Press Review and sign to open it and sign.
You signed	Your part is done; it is waiting for the other side.
Out for signature	It was sent, but it is not your turn yet.
Draft	The person who drafted it has not sent it yet. The author sees “Open it to send it”; the other side can sign once it is sent.
Signed by everyone	Both of you signed.
Declined, Voided or Expired	It ended unsigned. Either of you can draft a new one.

Open agreement opens the agreement’s page in the Dashboard. When it is sent, you also get an e-mail and a notification, and it is listed under Contracts > Awaiting My Signature.

Each of you signs on the agreement’s page in the Dashboard (Sign As), while acting as the profile the agreement names for you. Nobody else can sign or decline your part, including the person who drafted the agreement. Signing links are only for people outside United Pet Club, so the agreement has none for either of you. The owner can still tick Documents signed by hand.

When the transfer completes

The pet’s owner of record moves to the recipient (for co-ownership, the recipient is added as a co-owner and the owner stays). The pet appears in the new owner’s Pets, and the transfer stays in both sides’ history.
Health records follow the pet. The new owner, or a new co-owner, sees the pet’s full health history. Clinics and labs keep the records they wrote. After a full transfer the previous owner loses access, unless the transfer’s record-access choices keep them a read-only copy.
After a full transfer, the pet’s microchip and tag registrations move to the new owner, so a finder’s contact and lost-and-found alerts reach them. The pet’s recovery plan comes along; the new owner confirms they agree to be contacted before alerts start (see When a pet comes to you with a plan).
After a full transfer, the access the previous owner gave groomers, vets or trainers ends, every view-only share of the pet stops (see Sharing a pet or a litter), and the pet’s active animal listings are marked placed.
The diet goes with the pet too: the new owner sees its foods and diet history, and recall notices reach them from then on. Showing the food on the public pet page is turned off; the new owner can turn it back on (see Your pet’s diet).
The change reaches the pet’s records within a few seconds.

Notifications

Both sides hear about each step by e-mail and in the app, in the language of their account: an offer or a request, a co-owner’s approval needed, accepted, declined, cancelled, expired, disputed, resumed after a dispute, reversed by support, an owner declining to approve, and the completion. When an owner’s refusal ends a transfer, the owner and whoever started it get the refusal notice, and a recipient who is neither is told the transfer was cancelled; nobody hears it twice. Someone you invite by e-mail gets the invitation e-mail. You aren’t told about something you did yourself, except the completion, which both sides receive.

What can stop a transfer

A lost, stolen, disputed or fraud-watch alert is open on the pet. The transfer can’t complete until the alert is resolved.
The owner changed after the transfer started. Only the pet’s current owner can give it away, so start a new transfer from the new owner.
Another transfer is already open for the pet. Finish or cancel it first.
A protected deposit is held on the pet. A buyer paid a deposit through a Reserve listing, and the pet changes hands at that handover. You can start another transfer once the deposit is released or refunded.
The recipient is a place (a park, a venue). Only people and organizations can own a pet.
The offer expired before the recipient answered. Start a new one.

Protected-deposit sales are recorded for you

When a buyer and seller confirm a protected deposit handover, with the buyer’s photo, the seller’s chip scan and a microchip match, United Pet Club records the sale as a completed transfer. Nobody has to start it. It shows Sale · Marketplace with Recorded from: Protected deposit handover, under Submitted for the seller and Received for the buyer.

A direct sale paid with a deposit held by United Pet Club is different: the handover completes the transfer you already have, which then also shows Recorded from: Protected deposit handover.