Who should own a client domain?

Registrar accounts, handovers and avoiding the hostage domain.

Agencies often register domains for their clients to go faster. Years later, nobody remembers whose card pays the renewal, the freelancer who set it up has moved on, and a handover turns into a negotiation. A few rules, agreed on the first day, avoid that for everyone.

The hostage domain

The situation is common enough to have a name. A client wants to change agency, or the agency closes, and discovers that the domain carrying its website and email is registered in the agency's name, in the agency's registrar account, paid by the agency's card. Even with the best intentions, getting it back takes weeks: finding the right person, proving who the client is, waiting for transfer locks. With bad intentions, it becomes leverage over unpaid invoices.

Nobody plans for this. It happens because registering the domain "for now" in the agency account was the fastest way to launch.

The client owns the domain

The registrant, the legal owner, should be the client's company, with an email address the client controls, ideally a shared address such as [email protected] rather than one person's mailbox. The agency can manage the domain technically without owning it.

Registries treat the registrant as the owner in every dispute. Transfer confirmations, renewal notices and ownership changes go to the registrant email, so an address on the agency's domain, or on the domain itself, is a trap: if the domain expires, the email that could save it stops working too.

One registrar account per client

Separate accounts make handovers a matter of sharing a login or transferring an account, not moving domains one by one. Most registrars also let you invite the agency as a technical contact or give it delegated access with limited rights.

If the agency must hold the domains, for example to buy them in bulk, keep one sub-account or reseller account per client. On the day the client leaves, the whole account moves in one operation.

DNS, email and certificates come with the domain

Owning the name is not enough if everything around it lives in someone else's account. The same questions apply to each layer:

• DNS hosting. The zone is often hosted in the agency's Cloudflare or registrar account. Export it, or better, host it in an account the client owns and give the agency access.
• Email. The mailbox provider account, its admin login and its DKIM keys belong to the client. Losing access to it means losing password resets for every other tool.
• Certificates. Automated certificates follow the server, but paid certificates and their renewal account should be listed with the domain.
• Website hosting and CDN. Note which account holds each one, so a migration does not rely on memory.

Two more ways to lose a client's name are easy to miss: a registration that simply lapses (see what happens when a domain expires) and DNS records left behind for a service nobody uses anymore, which can let a stranger serve content on a subdomain (see orphaned subdomains).

Keep an inventory

A simple table, kept with the contract, prevents most surprises. For each domain, record:

Review it once a year, at the same time as the contract, and whenever someone who holds a login leaves either company.

Write down who pays

Agree on who renews each domain and certificate, and put it in the contract. When the agency pays, invoice it clearly as a line of its own, so the client knows the domain exists and what it costs.

A clause worth adding to every contract:

• The domains are registered in the client's name, or transferred to it on request within 10 business days.
• The agency hands over authorization codes and unlocks domains at the end of the contract, whatever the state of other invoices.
• Renewal dates and the person responsible are listed in an appendix, updated once a year.

What a clean handover looks like

When a client leaves, or when you take over a client from another agency, go through the same list:

1. 1List every domain, including old brand names, typo domains and redirects that nobody remembers.
2. 2Check the registrant name and email of each one, and correct them before anything else.
3. 3Renew the domains that expire within 60 days before starting any transfer.
4. 4Unlock each domain and request its authorization code, also called EPP or transfer code.
5. 5Start the transfer, or move the registrar account, and confirm from the registrant email.
6. 6Once the transfer completes, check that the name servers and DNS records are unchanged and that email still arrives.

Two delays catch people out. Most registries refuse a transfer during 60 days after a registration or a previous transfer, and changing the registrant name or email can trigger a similar 60-day lock on generic domains unless the registrar lets you opt out. Plan the handover a few months before an expiry date, not a few days.

Typo domains, old brands and freelancers

The domains that cause trouble are rarely the main one. Typo domains bought to protect the brand, the name of a product that was renamed, a campaign site from three years ago: they renew quietly on someone's card until the card expires. Then they lapse, and a stranger registers them to catch mistyped email or to run a lookalike site.

Freelancers raise the same question at a smaller scale. A developer who registered a domain on a personal account for a quick launch should move it to the client's account as soon as the project is delivered, while everyone still remembers it exists. Put it on the delivery checklist, next to handing over the code repository and the hosting logins.

When the previous agency does not answer

Start with the registrar: explain the situation and ask for its procedure for registrant disputes. Most registrars can update the registrant on proof of identity when the current registrant is your own company. If the domain is registered in the agency's name, you need the agency's cooperation, or, for a trademark, a dispute procedure such as the UDRP for generic domains or the registry's own procedure for country domains. Both take time and cost money, which is why the first rule matters.

Why it is good for the agency too

Registering domains in the client's name can feel like giving away leverage. In practice it removes a liability: an agency that holds domains is the first one blamed when a renewal fails, and the one called at midnight when email stops. Clear ownership turns domain management into a service you can invoice, with a defined scope, instead of an unpaid risk you carry.

It also makes the relationship easier to keep. Clients who know they can leave at any time, with their domains, rarely feel the need to. And when a client does leave, a clean handover is the last impression it keeps of the agency, the one it mentions when someone asks for a recommendation. Offering the handover checklist up front, in the proposal, is a simple way to show that the agency plays fair.

Keep an eye on everything

1. 1Connect each client's registrar account with read-only access.
2. 2Group their domains in a team named after the client.
3. 3Send expiry alerts to both the agency and the client contact.
4. 4Watch for domains that leave a synced registrar account: it is the first sign of a transfer, planned or not.