Your domain name is the one part of your website you should never let anybody else own. It is the address your customers, your van signage and your Google listing all point at. If somebody else holds it, they hold your business while you are arguing with them.
This comes up every time a firm changes designer. Usually the old designer registered the domain years ago on their own account, meant nothing bad by it, and now nobody can find the login. Sometimes it is worse than that. Either way the fix is the same and it is worth an hour of your evening.
Why it matters more than the site itself
A website can be rebuilt in days. A domain you have used for ten years cannot be replaced. Your reviews, your Google Business Profile, the links other sites have made to you, the address on two thousand leaflets and every van you own all point at that one name.
If you lose control of it, the site can be switched off, the email that runs on it stops, and anybody can point that address anywhere they like. We have seen a firm's email go dark for a fortnight over an unpaid renewal on somebody else's card.
How to check who actually owns yours
There are two questions here and they are different. Who is the registrant, meaning the legal owner, and who has the login to the account it sits in.
- For a .uk name, use the free Nominet WHOIS lookup. Nominet is the official registry for .uk domains. It will show the registrant name and the registrar the domain sits with.
- For .com, .net and most others, use the ICANN lookup tool. It shows the registrar and the expiry date even when the contact details are hidden for privacy.
- If the registrant is your company name, that is the answer you want. If it is the designer's name or agency, it is theirs on paper whatever anybody has told you.
- Then find the account. Search your email for renewal receipts from Nominet, 123 Reg, GoDaddy, Fasthosts, Namecheap or Cloudflare. The card that renews it is a strong clue about who controls it.
Privacy protection can hide the registrant name on non-.uk domains. That is normal and not a red flag on its own. What you do next is the same either way: ask, in writing.
What to ask the old designer
Keep it short and friendly. Most of the time this is sorted in two emails. Ask for three things: the registrar name, the account login or a transfer authorisation code, and confirmation in writing that the domain is yours.
If it is a .uk domain, the specific thing you want is for them to change the IPS tag to your new registrar, or to release the domain to you. That is a routine change at their end, and Nominet sets out how it works. Nominet on transferring a .uk domain, read 15 September 2026. If it is a .com, you want the authorisation code, sometimes called an EPP code or auth code, plus the transfer lock removed.
Two things to be aware of before you start. For .com and the other generic domains, ICANN's own transfer policy sets a sixty day lock after a change of registrant. ICANN transfer policy, read 15 September 2026. The .uk domains have their own process through Nominet. Neither is a problem, they just mean you should not leave this until the week you want to launch.
Say it in writing
The email to send the old designer
- Which registrar is the domain held with, and under what account name?
- Please confirm in writing that the domain is registered to my company.
- Please send the authorisation code, or change the IPS tag to my new registrar.
- Please remove the transfer lock on the domain.
- What is the renewal date, and whose card is it renewing on?
- Please also confirm who controls the DNS, and send me the current records.
- If email runs on this domain, please confirm the mailbox provider and the login.
How to move it
The move itself is undramatic. You open an account at a registrar in your own name, start a transfer, paste the authorisation code or hand over the IPS tag change, and confirm the email that arrives. UK firms commonly use Nominet accredited registrars such as 123 Reg, Fasthosts or Namecheap, and plenty use Cloudflare for the DNS side.
The one part people get wrong is the timing of the DNS. Your domain points at both your website and, very often, your email. Move the name without copying the email records across and the mail stops. Write the existing records down before anything changes, or have whoever is doing the transfer do it for you and show you the list.
If they will not hand it over
It happens. Sometimes there is a genuine unpaid invoice behind it, in which case settle it and move on. Sometimes they are holding it back on purpose. For .uk domains, Nominet runs a formal dispute process and publishes the rules, and a domain registered to a designer who has no rights to your trading name is a weak position for them to defend.
Before it gets to that, the practical move is to keep paying nothing new into the old arrangement and get everything in writing. Emails are evidence. Phone calls are not.
How we do it
We do not register domains in our own name. Yours goes in your company's account, on your card, and the login is yours from day one. When the site is paid for it is yours in full, including the files. If you ever want to move it elsewhere we will help you pack it up rather than make it awkward.