Recover your website from a former developer

First: inventory what you actually hold

Open your email and search for: hosting receipts (Hostinger, GoDaddy, Bluehost, AWS…), domain registrar receipts (the domain renewal emails prove ownership), and any CMS invite emails (WordPress user creation, Shopify staff). What you can log into TODAY is your starting position; everything else is recoverable but through different doors.

The recovery ladder, easiest first

You have hosting login. You control the files and usually the database: from here everything is recoverable. Change passwords, create your own admin user in the CMS, and the developer’s access no longer matters.

You have the domain registrar only. The domain is the asset regulators, customers and Google know: point its DNS wherever you rebuild, and the old site can be replaced at will. Email on that domain routes where the MX records say, so plan that before switching anything.

You have nothing. Ownership proof: the domain UDRP/registry processes respond to trademark and whois evidence; for ordinary cases, a letter from the registrar with business documents (invoice naming you, the domain in your business name) usually moves it. Hosting providers respond to the account holder: if the account is the developer’s, your path is the domain, not the host.

They are hostile, not just gone. Do not negotiate through anger; recover the domain and rebuild on your own hosting. Websites are rebuildable; time spent arguing with someone holding a CMS password is time the domain could already be serving your new site.

The rebuild

Modern builds from a backup or even a scrape take weeks, not months: content is portable, and if no backup exists the old site’s pages are recoverable from archives. The permanent fix is ownership hygiene going forward: registrar account in your name, your email on every receipt, hosting you control, and an exportable backup schedule.

When to bring us in

This is a situation we handle regularly: takeover and rescue starts with the inventory call - what you hold, what it costs to get the rest, and the fastest safe path to a site you fully control. Fixed price for the recovery, written scope, and the end state is always the same: you own every key.