// BUSINESS IT
Taking over the email and domain after buying a business
You have bought the business. Now you need the email working, and you have discovered that nobody can quite say who holds the domain. It is one of the most common loose ends in a small business sale, and it is very rarely a technical problem — it is a question of who has which login, and whether they are still willing to answer the phone. Here is how to work out what you actually acquired, what to ask the seller for before you complete, and what your options are when the passwords have genuinely gone missing. Rated 4.9 on Google.
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/01 — WHAT YOU BOUGHT
Work out what you have actually acquired
Before you chase anyone for a password, be clear about what changed hands. Three separate things get bundled together in most people’s heads, and a sale can include any combination of them.
- The domain name itself — the part after the @ sign, registered through a provider and renewed on a cycle. This is the asset that matters most.
- The platform the mailboxes run on — a Microsoft or Google subscription, or mailboxes bundled in with the web hosting. The messages physically live here.
- The individual addresses — info@, accounts@, the previous owner’s own address, plus any forwarders and aliases that nobody has ever written down.
It is entirely possible to buy a trading name, a customer list and a van, and not to have bought the domain at all. It is equally possible for the domain to be included on paper while the account it sits inside belongs to somebody who was never part of the sale. What the agreement says you acquired is a question for your solicitor; what you can actually sign into is the question we can help with, and the two are not always the same thing.
Start by writing down every email address you have seen the business use — on invoices, on the website, on signage, in the Google listing, on the quotes in the filing cabinet. That list is the true scope of the job.
/02 — TWO SEPARATE KEYS
The domain and the mailboxes are two different locks
This is where most handovers come unstuck. There are two locks, they are usually held in two different places, and being handed the key to one tells you nothing at all about the other.
Control of the domain lives in an account at the provider it is registered with. Whoever can sign in there decides where the domain points — which mail platform receives the messages, where the website loads from, and whether the domain gets renewed at all. This is the master control.
Control of the mailboxes lives on whatever platform hosts them, under an administrator account. Whoever holds that can create and remove mailboxes, reset passwords and read what is stored in them.
You can very easily end up holding one without the other. A seller who hands over the mailbox administrator login has given you the messages, but if a former web designer still holds the domain account, mail for the business can be redirected somewhere else at any time without your say-so, and nothing on your side will stop it. The reverse is far more comfortable: with the domain firmly under your control you can always rebuild mailboxes, even if the old ones are lost entirely.
If you can only secure one of the two before completion, secure the domain.
/03 — THE HANDOVER
How a handover normally works, in outline
Providers differ in the detail, but in outline a handover has two halves.
The domain. Either the existing account changes hands — the seller passes over the sign-in and you update the contact details, the billing card and the recovery options to yours — or the domain is moved out into an account of your own, which normally means the current provider releasing it and the receiving provider pulling it across. Separately from where the domain is managed, there is a record of who the registered holder is, and bringing that into your name is its own step. Do not assume that moving a domain between providers has changed the name on it.
The mailboxes. Either you take over the existing subscription and its administrator account, or you set up your own and copy the contents across before switching the mail routing over to it.
Order matters far more than speed. The mail routing is the switch that decides where new messages land, so it goes last, once the destination is genuinely ready and tested. Old mailboxes are best left running alongside for a while rather than closed on the day — suppliers, banks and customers carry on writing to whatever address they have on file for months afterwards, and a bounced message from a business that has just changed hands looks worse than it deserves to.
/04 — BEFORE COMPLETION
What to ask the seller for before you complete
Everything on this page becomes ten times harder once the money has changed hands. While the seller still wants the sale to go through, ask for the following in writing.
- Which provider the domain is registered with, the email address that account signs in with, and when the renewal falls due.
- Who the registered holder of the domain currently is — the business, the previous owner personally, or a third party.
- Which card or account pays the renewal, and whether it belongs to somebody who is leaving.
- Which platform the mailboxes sit on, and who the administrator is.
- A full list of mailboxes, shared mailboxes, aliases, forwarders and distribution lists, including any that quietly point at a personal address.
- Where the website is hosted, and where the DNS records are actually managed — frequently a different place again.
- Whether any two-step verification is tied to a mobile number or authenticator app belonging to somebody leaving, and the name of the web designer or IT provider who set it all up.
Then ask for one short screen-share in which the seller signs into each account in front of you. Nothing exposes a missing login faster. If a password cannot be produced on that call, it does not exist — and you have found out while you still have some leverage.
/05 — NO LOGINS
When the seller genuinely cannot get in
This is the version of the problem we see most often when a new owner calls us. The domain was registered years ago by a web designer using their own account, or an IT provider set the mail platform up under their own provider account, or the only sign-in is a personal address the previous owner stopped using two phones ago. It is common, and it is often recoverable — and sometimes it is not, which is worth knowing early either way. Work through it in this order.
- Ask, politely and early. Plenty of third parties hand things over without any fuss when a new owner approaches them properly, so start there rather than assuming the worst.
- Gather the evidence first. Some providers will look at a request like this and some will not, and it usually comes down to what you can show about the business’s connection to the account. Pull the paperwork together before you start — old renewal invoices, the card that paid, correspondence, company records — because you will be asked for it and it is far harder to find later.
- Find the renewal date. A domain nobody is paying for eventually lapses and becomes available to anyone. Knowing the date turns a vague worry into a deadline you can plan around.
- Protect the day to day meanwhile. Even without full account access there are usually steps that keep mail reaching the business while the rest is untangled.
If it turns into a dispute about ownership rather than a technical problem, that is your solicitor’s ground, not ours. And in a small number of cases the pragmatic answer is a fresh domain and a planned change of address for customers — nobody’s first choice, but better than an indefinite standstill. We will tell you plainly which of those you are looking at.
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// GOOD QUESTIONS
Frequently asked
How do I find out who a business domain is registered with?
A public lookup will usually show which provider the domain is registered through and when it is due for renewal, which is normally enough to know who you need to approach. The name behind it is often withheld for privacy, so the lookup tells you where the account lives rather than whose it is. Old renewal invoices in the business paperwork are frequently the quickest route to the account itself. We can run those checks for you and explain what they show.
The seller says the web designer holds the domain. What happens now?
In most cases a polite approach from the new owner settles it, and the designer either passes the account across or releases the domain. Where that does not happen, providers may consider a request like this, and it tends to rest on evidence linking the business to the account, so gather renewal invoices, payment records and correspondence before you start. If it becomes a dispute about who owns what, that is a matter for your solicitor rather than for us. Meanwhile, find the renewal date, because that is the clock you are working to.
Can we keep the same email addresses after buying the business?
Almost always, yes, provided you end up in control of the domain. The addresses themselves are only names on that domain, so once the domain sits in your account you can recreate any address you need, even if the original mailboxes have been lost. Keeping them matters more than people expect: those addresses are printed on invoices, on vehicles, in business listings, and in the address book of every customer and supplier the business has ever dealt with.
Should I take over the existing email account or set up a new one?
Both approaches work. Taking over the existing subscription is quicker and nothing has to be copied, but you inherit whatever state it was left in, including dormant staff accounts and billing tied to the seller. Setting up your own gives you a clean slate with billing and administration in your name, at the cost of copying the mail across first. Where the platform was originally set up under an outside provider account, a fresh setup is often simpler than untangling it.
What happens to emails sent to the previous owner after the sale?
Decide this deliberately rather than letting it happen by default. Personal mail will keep arriving at a work address for months, and what should be done with the contents of a departing owner mailbox is a question for your solicitor, not a technical one. On the practical side, the options run from keeping the mailbox live and monitored, to redirecting it to someone in the business, to an automatic reply giving the new contact. Agree the approach with the seller in advance.
Bought a business and locked out of its email?
We untangle domains and mailboxes for new owners across Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset — working out who holds what, and getting control back where it belongs. Call 01202 775566 for a straight answer.
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