My developer registered my domain and won't give it back
You do not actually own your domain or hosting if a developer registers them under their personal account. Business owners often hand over the keys without asking for logins, only realizing a year later that everything is locked behind the developer's account. Getting the domain back becomes a digital hostage situation that can take months and a lawyer's letter to resolve.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
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My developer registered my domain and won't give it back
- 1Buy the domain yourself from a standalone registrar and use your own email and payment method.Did this help you?
- 2Keep domains on a separate registrar and only give developers DNS access instead of account logins.Did this help you?
- 3Registering the domain in your own name on your own accountDid this help you?
- 4Requiring admin access from day one, even if you never use itDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“This happened to a friend of mine, the dev just ghosted and took the domain with him like a digital hostage situation. Took two months and a lawyer letter to get it back”source ↗
“I genuinely didn’t believe it when I realized I didn’t own anything, not the domain, not the hosting, not even the login.”source ↗
“Handing over the keys and not asking how to log in until a year later, then finding out everything's locked behind their account”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5Why are websites and APIs suddenly unreachable?
- 3Why does our website only work with its internal IP?
- 4What to do when your dot com domain is taken or parked
- 2KB5124008 breaking domain trust?
- 2Secure European email provider for custom domains
- 4Which hostname should be included in a mail server TLS certificate?