Who Actually Owns Your Website? Contracts, Code and Content

The default rule catches most owners out

Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, copyright in a creative work belongs to the person who made it, not the person who paid for it. Commissioning a website, paying every invoice on time and using the site for years does not, by itself, transfer ownership of the design or the code to you. Unless your contract contains a written assignment, your agency almost certainly still owns the copyright, and you are operating under an implied licence.

Implied licences are uncomfortably vague. Can you move the site to another developer and modify it? Reuse the design for a second brand? Nobody knows until it is argued over, which is precisely when you do not want ambiguity. There is a further wrinkle: work created by an agency's employees belongs to the agency, but work created by its freelance contractors belongs to those freelancers unless the agency's own paperwork gathered up the rights. If it did not, the agency cannot assign to you what it never owned. This article is general information rather than legal advice, but the practical steps below will keep you out of most trouble.

Code, design, content and images are owned differently

A website is a bundle of separately owned parts, and the answer to 'who owns it' differs for each one.

• Bespoke code: owned by whoever wrote it until it is assigned to you in writing.
• Open-source foundations: WordPress and its themes are licensed under the GPL, so nobody assigns you ownership; what matters is who holds the licence keys for premium plugins and whether they transfer.
• Design and branding: your logo and brand assets should be assigned outright, and a logo worth having is worth considering for trade mark registration.
• Copy: words the agency wrote are the agency's by default, exactly like the code.
• Stock images and fonts: never owned by anyone but the stock library; you hold a licence, and it is frequently tied to the agency's account rather than yours.

That last point bites regularly. If the image licences sit in an agency account and you part ways, you may have no proof you are entitled to the photographs on your own homepage. Ask for a schedule of licensed assets and copies of the licence confirmations.

Accounts and access matter as much as copyright

The single most important asset is the domain name. The registrant must be your business, at your email address, in a registrar account you control. An agency listed as technical contact is fine; an agency listed as registrant is a hostage situation waiting for a dispute.

• Hosting: the account should be yours, with the agency invited in as a collaborator.
• CMS: you hold an administrator login of your own, not a shared one.
• Google Analytics and Search Console: your Google account owns the property; the agency gets user access.
• Google Business Profile and Meta Business Manager: same principle, you own, they manage.
• Email: mailboxes and the DNS records that make them deliverable belong with the domain, under your control.

Every one of these is cheap to set up correctly at the start and painful to recover later.

Contract clauses worth asking for

None of these requests is aggressive; good agencies agree to them routinely. Ask before signing, when your negotiating position is strongest.

• An assignment clause: all bespoke code, design and copy created for the project is assigned to you on payment of the final invoice.
• A third-party schedule: a list of every open-source component, premium plugin, font and stock asset, with its licence terms.
• Deliverables that include source: design files, repository access and any build tooling needed to change the site later.
• A moral rights waiver, so you can adapt the work without needing further consent.
• Portability: confirmation the site runs on standard hosting, with no dependence on the agency's proprietary platform unless clearly disclosed.
• Exit assistance: a commitment to hand over access and files within a defined number of days, at a stated reasonable fee.

In return, expect the agency to keep ownership of its pre-existing tools and frameworks, licensing them to you rather than assigning them. That is normal and fair; the assignment should cover the work created specifically for you.

The handover checklist when you leave

Request everything on this list while the relationship is still cordial, ideally before you announce you are moving.

• Domain: registrar login or an initiated transfer, plus confirmation the registrant details name your business.
• DNS: a full export of current records before anything changes.
• Hosting: account credentials, or a complete backup of files and database.
• CMS: an administrator account and a review of every other user with access.
• Code: access to the Git repository, including deployment configuration.
• Licences: keys for premium plugins and themes, plus stock image and font licence documentation.
• Analytics: ownership of the GA4 property and Search Console verification.
• Email: mailbox access and the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records that keep mail deliverable.
• Integrations: API keys and logins for payment providers, booking tools and CRM connections.

Audit your position this week

Three questions reveal where you stand. Who is the registrant of your domain? Can someone in your business log in to the hosting today? Is there a written assignment of the site's bespoke work anywhere in your contract? If any answer is 'not sure', resolve it now, while it is administrative housekeeping rather than a dispute.

Businesses rarely think about ownership until an agency relationship sours or a founder wants to sell, and by then the leverage has moved. If you would like a second pair of eyes on a web contract or an exit handled cleanly, our team is happy to help.