Transferring an already registered domain name entails changing the domain name registrar that handles the registration service, so after the transfer itself, you will have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS resource record modifications through the new registrar company. The transfer process itself is standard with most universal and country-specific top-level domain name extensions. Some country-code extensions are more specific and involve different steps, but in the general case transferring a domain involves several necessary steps and one of them is unlocking the domain name. The domain lock is a safety feature, which is being embraced by more and more registry operators. It’s a default feature supported by all gTLDs. If a domain name is locked, it won’t be possible to start a transfer process, so no one can even try to snatch your domain. The domain lock can be removed only through the account where the domain name is registered and all new domain names that support this functionality are locked by default when they are registered.