Who owns my website if my designer disappears?

The agreement and any licences, meaning permissions to use someone else's work, describe what you receive; written ownership and handover terms should make that arrangement explicit. A paid invoice alone does not tell you which accounts you can open today.

A domain name is the web address customers type to reach your business. Hosting is the service that stores your website and keeps it available online. Your website's files are separate from both accounts. Losing access to one does not tell you whether the others are lost.

A shop in Beirut or Dubai can keep its website online after the designer disappears, provided its services and files remain available and renewals are paid. Someone still needs access to manage them.

A written handover should identify the accounts and files you receive, along with any services that will end. If the designer has stopped replying, use this inventory to organise what you already have.

• The web-address account, its renewal date and the contact recorded for the registration.
• The website-storage account and a separate list of any email or booking services.
• A dated backup, meaning a saved copy, including the website's working instructions and any stored customer records.
• The agreement covering what can be moved, any continuing subscriptions and cancellation dates.

Check your web address first, your account access second and your saved copies third. Spend up to eight minutes on each using your browser, inbox and existing files. If you cannot get into an account, record that result. Finding the problem is separate from completing a recovery.

Search your inbox for the exact address and renewal messages. The company managing the registration is called the registrar. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, coordinates the global web-address system. Its public registration lookup lets you search an address without signing in.

For a .com address used by a business in Lebanon or the UAE, the lookup can show the registration company, dates and status. Under ICANN's Registration Data Policy, the holder's name and contact details can be redacted, meaning hidden from public view. A missing name does not prove that your designer owns the address.

Record the company and status you find. An existing registration gives you somewhere to investigate; it does not establish that you control it. Compare the public information with your registration account and renewal notices when available.

The following timings concern ordinary .com and .net registrations. A .lb address in Lebanon or .ae address in the UAE follows its own registration rules, so do not apply these deadlines to it.

• The address has expired but is still renewable. A renewal grace period is extra time a company may allow after expiry, typically zero to 45 days and not a guaranteed allowance for your account. Check the renewal terms immediately.
• The status says redemptionPeriod. A restoration window after deletion, typically 30 days. The company that deleted the registration handles restoration for the holder at expiry, and a restoration fee may apply.
• The status is final pendingDelete, without redemptionPeriod or pendingRestore. A final five-day stage with no restoration. Once released, someone else may register the address first, and renewing your old account will not bring it back.

ICANN documents each of these stages: the typical domain lifecycle, the Expired Registration Recovery Policy and the domain status explanations.

Renewing an address does not restore deleted website files. A lookup that fails to return a record also does not, by itself, prove the address is available.

Open the account links in your original setup emails and try your existing business login. Look for your website address, account details and billing information. Seeing only a screen for changing text or photos means you have editing access, which may be more limited.

• You can manage the accounts. You can plan a move, subject to the agreement, available files and any transfer restrictions. Keeping the address does not require keeping the same developer.
• You can only edit pages. Preserve what you can access. This login does not establish that you can move the whole site.
• You cannot sign in. An account in your name may have a recovery route through its provider. An account belonging to the designer cannot simply be reset as though it were yours.

Moving the address to another registration company uses an authorisation code, a private transfer code sometimes labelled AuthInfo. Under ICANN's Transfer Policy, it goes to the registered holder, the person or organisation recorded for that address. If the holder cannot generate the code through the account, the company must supply it within five calendar days of that holder's request.

In the policy checked on 10 September 2026, a company may refuse a transfer within 60 days of initial registration, or within 60 days of a previous transfer, with specified exceptions. Changing the holder's name, organisation or email can trigger a 60-day restriction unless an offered opt-out was accepted beforehand. Check this before changing registration details. Receiving the code does not remove these restrictions or transfer your website files.

Search your email attachments and existing folders for the website address, "backup" and "handover". Open any accompanying file list and note its date. Then open your public website and see which pages remain available, including Arabic, English or French versions used by your business.

• You have a backup. It may contain enough to restore the site, but its contents need checking and testing. Its date matters: later orders or edits may be missing.
• You only have public pages. Save your visible text and images. A Beirut salon's French price list may be recoverable this way, while private appointment records remain unavailable.
• The site is offline and you have no copies. The provider or original builder may still hold a backup. If every copy of a file or record has been permanently deleted, that information cannot be recovered.

A screenshot is not a working website. The page you see does not contain all the software behind a booking form or the private records it stores. Rebuilding the page's appearance cannot recreate missing appointment history.

Ask the relevant provider what it needs to verify your account or registration, using the records from your checks. A designer's refusal does not tell you whether the obstacle is a missing login, a transfer restriction or a dispute about the holder.

Keep the agreement, invoices and messages together. A provider may need to review them, but paying for the build is not a promise that it will release another person's account. These checks identify practical access problems; they do not settle legal ownership in Lebanon or the UAE.

A usable handover gives you working access, clear renewal arrangements and a tested copy of whatever is being moved. For a UAE shop, that includes checking whether order records and business email are separate from the public website.

Where the old website cannot be recovered, a replacement website build needs a clear scope based on the material that remains. Rebuilding and recovering old records are different jobs.