Actually, the rules changed very recently. Having acquired a license second hand myself, I can tell you what I went through:
1) There will be a transfer fee only if you are changing operating systems and/or dongles. $1000 US to change operating systems, $500 US to get a new dongle issued.
2) Back maintenance is no longer charged for out of date licenses. Instead, you have to pay an "upgrade" fee for each major software version you are out of date (The old method made you pay $ per each month out of date). The upgrade fee is optional. If you stick with the current version you have on hand, then no fee applies.
3) You cannot purchase a maintenance contract until your license is fully up to date. A license that is a few versions old may become very costly. For example, Here in the USA, upgrading a v1.5 license to v2.0x will cost $2,600 for the upgrade fee, plus an additional $2,400 for a maintenance contract if desired. That's $5,000 on top of the cost paid to acquire the license from the seller. However, once you're on maintenance, all upgrades are free for the rest of the contract.
Be careful. Should XSI v2.5 be released while you still have an XSI v1.5 license in your hands, you'll then have to pay 2 upgrade fees before you can purchase a maintenance contract: $2,600 to upgrade to v2.0x, an additional $2,600 to upgrade from v2.0x to v2.5, then another $2,400 to get the maintenance contract. Total cost is $7,600 US.
If you're gonna purchase an XSI license 2nd hand, make sure you get something recent or else it'll cost you just as much or more than a new license from the dealer.
Matt
Matt Lind
Animator / Technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
speye_21@hotmail.com