1. Your domain name, registered in your business name
The domain is the thing you can least afford to lose. Everything else can be rebuilt in a fortnight. A domain somebody else controls can take months to prise loose, and while that is going on your email usually stops too.
Good looks like this. The registrant on the record is your exact legal name: the company name as registered at Companies House, or your own name and trading name if you are a sole trader. Not the designer's company. Not "c/o" anybody. For .co.uk and other .uk domains, moving between providers is done by changing the IPS tag, a short code that says which registrar holds the domain. For .com, .org and other global domains you move it with an auth code, sometimes called an EPP or transfer code. They are genuinely different systems, and the auth code people talk about online does not exist for .co.uk.
The warning sign is any version of "we look after the domain for you" when you have never seen the record. Since GDPR, Nominet's public WHOIS often hides the registrant name, so a WHOIS screenshot is not proof of anything. Ask your provider to confirm in writing who the registrant is, or set up your own login for the domain with Nominet directly. If a registrar goes quiet and will not change your tag, Nominet can move it for you: their published fee schedule lists a change of registrar handled by Nominet, and a transfer of registrant, at £10 plus VAT each.
2. The accounts behind it: registrar, hosting and email
There is a difference between having a website hosted and having a hosting account. If your designer bought hosting inside their own reseller account and put you in it, you are a tenant. You cannot move out without their cooperation, and you cannot see what you are actually paying for.
Good looks like an account at the registrar and an account at the host, both in your business name, both with your email address as the account holder, both with your own card or direct debit on file. You can log in today without asking permission. Your designer is added as a user, or simply given the details, which is completely normal and fine.
Do not forget email. Your mailboxes and your DNS records usually sit with either the domain or the hosting. Losing control of DNS is how businesses end up with a working website and dead email for a week. Ask two specific questions: where do my mailboxes live, and who is able to change the MX records.
3. The website itself: code, CMS admin and design files
You should hold a full administrator account on whatever the site is built with, under your own email address. Administrator, not editor, not contributor. If it is WordPress, you should be able to log in, see the plugins, and add or remove users yourself.
You should also be able to get a copy of the site. On a build you host yourself that means the files and the database, or access to the code repository. A decent developer hands this over without drama. Ask for it once during the build, so you know it exists, rather than finding out at the worst possible moment that nobody can produce it.
Proprietary platforms are the honest exception and it is worth being clear about them. On Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy Website Builder and the like, you own your account and your content, but the code is theirs and it cannot come with you. That is not a scam, it is how those platforms work. It does mean that leaving there means rebuilding, so decide with your eyes open before you start. Shopify sits somewhere in between: the store and the data are yours and portable, the theme is licensed.
4. Your content, images and the licences you pay for
This is the part most people assume is settled, and usually it is not. Under UK copyright law the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright in it. Paying somebody to create something does not automatically move that copyright to you, and a transfer only counts if it is in writing and signed. That comes from the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. I am not a solicitor, and if a real dispute is brewing you should take proper advice, but it is worth knowing that the default is not what most business owners expect.
So ask, before you pay, what happens to the copyright in the words, photographs, illustrations and logo. You want either a written assignment to your business on final payment, or a clear permanent licence letting you use, edit and move the material anywhere you like. Get it in the contract in plain English. If a photographer shot your premises, check whether their licence covers social media and print as well as the website.
The same applies to anything paid for or licensed. Stock photo licences are granted to a named licensee, so if that name is the designer's account the images may not be yours to keep. Premium plugin, theme and font licences should be bought in your name where possible, or at the very least listed for you with their renewal dates. The warning sign is a website that quietly breaks when somebody else's subscription lapses.
5. Google Business Profile, Search Console and analytics
Your Google Business Profile is often the single biggest source of enquiries for a local business, and it is the asset most often left sitting in somebody else's Gmail account. You should be the primary owner. Your designer or agency should be added as an owner or a manager alongside you.
If primary ownership needs to move, the current primary owner invites the other person, that person accepts, and then they can be promoted. Google makes newly added owners and managers wait a few days before they can use every feature, so do not leave this to the morning of a handover.
Search Console and analytics work along the same lines. You should be a verified owner of the Search Console property in your own Google account, and the tidiest method is verification by a DNS TXT record on the domain you control, because it survives a change of designer. For Google Analytics, make sure you have Administrator access at account level, not just a view of one property. The warning sign here is simple: nobody can tell you which email address the analytics account sits under.
6. What to ask before you pay a deposit
These are fair questions and any decent designer will answer each one in a sentence. If somebody gets prickly, that is your answer.
Will the domain be registered in my business name, with me as the registrant, in an account I can log into? Will the hosting account be in my name with my own payment method on it? Will I have a full administrator login to the site? If I ask on any given day, can I have a copy of the site files and database? Who owns the copyright in the text, photos and logo once I have paid in full, and is that written down? Which licences are being bought, in whose name, and what do they cost each year? Will I be primary owner of the Google Business Profile and a verified owner in Search Console? And if I ever leave, what exactly do you do, how long does it take, and what do you charge for it?
That last one matters most. There is nothing wrong with a provider charging a fair hourly rate to help you move on. There is something badly wrong with one who has never thought about the question. For what it is worth, I build every site with all of this in the client's name from day one, and you can reach me by phone, text or WhatsApp seven days a week if you ever want out. That should be the boring normal rather than a selling point.
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Common questions
What if my current provider refuses to release my .co.uk domain?
If you are the registrant on the Nominet record, you can go to Nominet directly rather than relying on the provider. Nominet's published fee schedule lists a change of registrar handled by Nominet at £10 plus VAT. The harder case is where the provider's name is on the record as the registrant rather than yours, because then you are arguing about who owns it. That is a legal question and worth an hour with a solicitor before you spend months emailing.
Should the domain be registered in my company name or my personal name?
If you trade through a limited company, use the exact registered company name as it appears at Companies House. If you are a sole trader, use your own name, with the trading name recorded where the registrar allows it. Keeping the domain in the business name means it moves with the business if you ever sell, and it removes any argument about whose asset it is.
I paid for the website, so surely I own it?
Not automatically, at least not the copyright. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 the author of a work is the first owner of the copyright, and a transfer to you is only effective if it is put in writing and signed. Paying an invoice on its own does not do it. Ask for a written assignment or a clear permanent licence in the contract. I am not a solicitor, so take proper advice if there is money or a real dispute involved.
Do I own my site if it is on Squarespace, Wix or Shopify?
You own the account and your content, but not the underlying platform code, so the build itself cannot be lifted onto different hosting. Make sure the subscription is in your business name and paid on your card, not your designer's. On Shopify your products, orders and customer data are exportable, which helps a great deal. On the pure site builders, moving away realistically means a rebuild, so choose knowing that.
I registered a .com recently and it will not transfer. Why?
Global domains such as .com are usually locked against transfer for 60 days after a new registration, after a previous transfer, or after a change to the registrant details. It is a standard registrar rule rather than anything your provider has done to you. Wait out the 60 days, then request the auth code. Bear it in mind before you make any last minute change to the registrant name in the middle of a move.