You paid for the site, the site works, and you naturally assume it is yours. In most cases it is. But a website is not one thing, it is three separate ones, and it happens that one of them is in someone else’s name without you knowing until you need it.
This is not a story about someone stitching you up. It usually happens with no bad intent at all: someone registered the domain in their own name because it was quicker, and then it simply stayed that way. The problem does not show while everything runs smoothly. It shows the day you want to change the firm that looks after your site, or the day you and they part ways.
Here are the three things that make up your website, and how to check that each one is genuinely yours.
The domain: whose name is it registered in
The domain is your address, and it is the most important of the three, because without it you have nothing even if everything else is in order.
The question is not who pays for the domain, but whose name and whose account it is registered under. If it is registered to you or your company, and you have access to the account at the registrar, all is well. If it is registered to the firm that built your site, then technically your address is not yours, and at the point of parting you depend on their goodwill to transfer it to you.
The domain is the one item I would advise you to always keep in your own name, without exception, even if you leave everything else for someone else to run.
Hosting: do you have access to the account
Hosting is the server the site lives on. Again, the question is access, not payment.
If the hosting account is in your name and you hold the login details, you can move the site to anyone you like at any time. If the hosting is part of a package with the firm that maintains your site, and you have no access, then the site lives in their space. While the relationship is good, that even makes your life easier. When you want to leave, it becomes something you have to ask for, rather than something you already hold.
It is not inherently bad for someone else to run your hosting. What is bad is not knowing whether you can reach your own site without that person.
The code and access: can you leave with your site
The third thing is the site itself: accounts, content and code. Here one question is key, and in the UK it has a legal edge worth knowing.
Under UK copyright law, when a developer or agency builds custom code for you on a commissioned basis, the copyright in that code belongs to them by default, not to you, unless it is assigned to you in writing. Paying the invoice is not the same as owning the copyright. So the practical question is twofold: is there an administrator account that is yours, and does your contract actually assign ownership of the work to you. With open systems like WordPress the site can be exported and moved, provided you have administrator access and access to the hosting. But whether the custom code is legally yours comes down to what the contract says. This is general information rather than legal advice, so if it matters to you, have a solicitor look at your contract.
How to check today, in ten minutes
You do not need anyone to check this. Three checks:
Domain. Find out which email address your domain renewal notices go to and whether you have access to that account. If you do not know where your domain is registered, that is already your answer.
Hosting. Ask yourself whether you hold any login details for the hosting, or whether for anything to do with the server you go to one person. If it is always that person, the access is not with you.
The site. Check whether you have an administrator account in your own name. Not an account someone set up for you to edit text, but full administrator access. And check whether your contract assigns the work to you.
If you can answer yes to all of these, everything is yours and you have nothing to worry about. If you cannot answer one of them, that is not cause for panic, it is something worth sorting while the relationship is good, rather than when you need it.
What to ask for when you build a new site
To stop this recurring, one thing settled at the outset is enough: that the domain, the hosting and administrator access are all in your name, that whoever builds the site is added as a collaborator in your space rather than the other way round, and that the contract assigns ownership of the work to you. None of that makes the project dearer or more complicated. It simply means that whenever you choose, you can take your site with you.
A good sign is when the person building your site offers, unprompted, to put it all in your name and to assign the work to you. That is the difference between someone building your asset and someone keeping you tied to them.
When you do not need to worry about this
If you already have the domain in your own name, access to the hosting, your own administrator account and a contract that assigns the work to you, this piece is not for you. Everything is as it should be, and you run your relationship with anyone from a position where your site stays yours at every moment. That is the whole aim, and if you are there, nothing needs touching.
Related: WordPress or an AI-built website · Wix, Squarespace or WordPress
If you are not sure who holds your domain, hosting and access, send us the site address. We will check whose name each part is in and send back a clear picture, with no obligation to change anything with us. It is good to know, whoever you are with.