Who owns your website?

Four separate things make up what you call "my website", and each can belong to a different person. Most owners learn that in the week they try to change developer. Ten minutes tells you exactly where you stand, free, without asking your developer anything. Here are the four checks, and the email to send if the answer comes back badly.

What are the four things that can be owned separately?

The domain name, the hosting account, the code, and the content. Four assets, four possible owners, and one invoice marked "website" transfers none of them by itself. You can own all four, none of them, or — the common case — the content and nothing else.

Does paying the invoice make it mine?

No. Payment buys what the contract says it buys, and most small website contracts say nothing about ownership. The US Copyright Office's Circular 30 says a commissioned work counts as a "work made for hire" only if it falls into one of nine listed categories and both parties signed a written agreement saying so. A website generally fits neither test, which is why lawyers use a written assignment of copyright instead. Without one, whoever wrote the code owns the code. UK law lands in the same place. Section 11 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988: "The author of a work is the first owner of any copyright in it", with an exception only for employees. A freelancer is not your employee.

How do I check who owns my website right now?

Four checks. All free, all run from your own laptop, none needing your developer to reply.

1. Run a WHOIS lookup on the domain

Go to lookup.icann.org, type your domain, press Enter. The Registrant Name and Registrant Organization fields name the legal holder. If that is your developer or their agency, the domain is not yours. Since the EU privacy rules of May 2018 most records show "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY" there, but two fields still appear: Registrar, which tells you who to phone, and Registry Expiry Date. Put that date in your calendar today.

2. Log into the registrar yourself

Go to whichever registrar the lookup named, click "forgot password", and try every email address you control, old ones included. If a reset link lands in your inbox, the account is yours and you never needed your developer. If nothing arrives, the account sits in someone else's email, and that one fact decides how hard the rest of this gets.

3. Check whether you are Owner or Manager on Google

Open your Business Profile and look at who has access. Google's permissions table is explicit: only owners can add and remove users or remove the profile, and managers cannot. If you are a Manager on your own business, someone else controls the most valuable free asset a local business has. Google also makes a newly added owner or manager wait 7 days before they can delete a profile or transfer primary ownership.

4. See where your DNS points

Use Google's Dig tool and read the NS records. They name the account that actually steers your domain, which is often not the registrar. Whoever holds it can move your site and your mail within the hour. Read the MX records too, because that is your email, and email breaks first when a handover goes wrong.

Who hosts my website, and how do I find out?

Hosting is the third of the four things above, and it is the one people most often cannot name. Three checks, all free, none requiring a login:

• Search your email for the renewal. Hosting bills annually or monthly, so a receipt exists somewhere. Search for the domain name rather than the word "hosting" — the invoice almost always contains it.
• Look up the name servers. A WHOIS lookup at lookup.icann.org lists them, and they usually name the company: ns1.somehost.com is not subtle. They point at whoever manages DNS, which is often but not always the host.
• Ask, in writing, and ask for the account. "Which company hosts my site, what is the account name, and is it in my name?" The answer to the third part is the one that matters.

If the hosting account is in your developer's name, you do not have a hosting problem — you have the same problem as the domain, one layer down. It is recoverable, and the email further down this page is written for exactly that conversation.

What do I send a developer who will not hand over?

One written email, four numbered deliverables, one date. "Can I have my website please" is easy to ignore; a numbered list with a deadline is not, and it becomes your evidence later. Send it from the address you want everything transferred to.

Subject: Website handover for [Your Business] - please reply by [date]

Hi [name],

I'm moving [yourbusiness.com] to a new provider. I'm not asking you to do
any development work. I need four things handed over, by [date - give at
least 7 working days].

1. THE DOMAIN
   Either add me as a user on the registrar account for [yourbusiness.com],
   or unlock the domain and send me the auth code (also called the EPP code
   or transfer authorisation code) so I can move it to my own registrar.
   Please confirm which registrar holds it and the renewal date.

2. THE FILES AND THE DATABASE
   A full export: all website files, the database (a .sql dump is fine)
   and the media library. A .zip on a download link is fine.

3. GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE
   Please transfer the Owner role for our Google Business Profile to
   [your email address]. Manager access is not enough.

4. DNS
   Either give me access to wherever the DNS records are managed, or send
   me the current records (A, CNAME, MX and TXT) so nothing breaks when the
   site moves - our email in particular.

If anything is outstanding on my account, tell me the amount today and I
will settle it before the handover date.

If I haven't heard from you by [date], I will go directly to the registrar
and to Google to recover the domain and the business listing.

Thanks,
[your name]
[phone number]

What if they still refuse?

It comes down to check #1. If the registrant is you, you can route around your developer and they cannot stop you. If the registrant is them, your leverage is weak. Worth knowing before you pay a lawyer.

Price the alternative before you price a lawyer. A new domain is usually under $25 a year and a rebuild is days of work, so litigation over a four-figure website often costs more than it recovers. The exception is a domain your customers know and your van is painted with: a new one starts its Google history at zero. If they name a price for that, paying is often the cheapest correct answer. And if an unpaid invoice sits behind all this, settle it first. Plenty of these standoffs are a billing dispute in a hostage costume.

Where does Fablence stand?

Your domain stays registered to you. On Google we take the Manager role and never Owner, which means you can remove us in two clicks and a Manager has no permission to remove an Owner, so we could never remove you. Ask for a static export of your whole site and you get it the same day, free, no form and no reason required, at any time and not only when you leave. Plans are month to month at $69, 30 days' notice and no exit fee, and the $299 setup is charged only once you approve the design (prices as of September 2026). Full pricing and process are on the site.

Two honest caveats. If your developer is responsive and fair and the site works, do not move. And we are the wrong call for an online store, a booking system, a membership portal, a custom web app, or a multi-location franchise. Once you have the handover, moving the site is the next problem and keeping your rankings through it the one after.