Transferring an already registered domain involves switching the domain name registrar that handles the domain name registration service, so after the transfer itself, you will have to manage things like renewal payments or DNS record modifications through the new registrar company. The transfer process itself is standard with most generic and country-code domain 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. The lock is a safety option, which is being adopted by more and more domain name registry operators. It’s a default feature supported by all gTLDs. If a domain is locked, it won’t be possible to start a transfer procedure, so no one can even try to register your domain name. The lock can be annulled only through the account where the domain is registered in the first place and all new domain names that support this feature are locked by default the moment they are registered.