Who owns your website when the designer stops answering?

How hiring a web designer goes wrong

The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) publishes anonymous dispute case studies, and one of them is about a website. A business paid over $15,000 for a site due in six months, and ten months later wanted a full refund^[6]. The supplier came back only after the Ombudsman issued a Notice to Mediate and said he would publish the refusal^[6].

It says nothing about how often hiring goes wrong. It does show the pattern to guard against: money paid, a date that passed, and a supplier who stopped answering.

From payment to mediation

1. Pays over $15,000for a site due in six months
2. Ten months later

   No working website

3. Supplier stops respondingand ignores offers of dispute resolution
4. Ombudsman issues a Notice to Mediate
5. Settled at mediation

Look at real work, and talk to the people who paid for it

Start with sites the designer has built that you can open on your own phone. Ask which parts they did: the design, the build, the words, or all of it. Then ask for a past client you can call, and ask that client what happened after launch.

Buyers already lean this way, going by a 2022 GoDaddy study^[7]. GoDaddy sells web services and the sample is American, so read it as a tendency.

Who they would hire

• 59%

  would choose a personal acquaintance over anyone else

  GoDaddy, 2022 [7]

• 64%

  would be suspicious of a provider with no reviews

  GoDaddy, 2022 [7]

• None

  would pick a provider with neither reviews nor a portfolio

  204 surveyed, 18 interviewed [7]

Get the process and the dates in writing

Ask for the stages, the date for each and what you need to supply. Ask too what counts as finished and who signs it off. A written schedule turns a vague delay into something you can point to.

Dates and promises in writing also matter under the Australian Consumer Law. It gives services guarantees: due care and skill, fit for purpose, and supplied within a reasonable time^[8]. Queensland's guidance says the service must achieve the result you made clear beforehand. It must do so by the agreed time, or within a reasonable time if none was set^[9]. If the provider warns that the service is unlikely to achieve that result and you go ahead anyway, the fit-for-purpose guarantee does not apply^[9].

$100,000

Whether the guarantees cover a business buying a website depends on the details. Victoria's regulator says a business counts as a consumer for a service costing up to $100,000^[8]. Queensland's says services normally used for business are generally excluded^[9]. The guarantees may apply to you, so check your situation with your state's consumer regulator before you rely on them.

Who owns your domain name?

auDA, which runs .au, says registrants do not own a domain name; they hold a licence for the licence period^[10]. The registrant is the person or business recorded as holding that licence^[1].

A designer can apply for the name on your behalf. auDA's licensing rules say an agent "must ensure that the Person on whose behalf they are applying is recorded as the Registrant"^[1]. Whether a name held in a designer's own name breaks that rule depends on the facts. Either way it leaves you needing them, because a transfer starts with the registrant asking for it^[1].

You can check this yourself. Anyone can look up a .au domain in auDA's WHOIS tool. It shows the registrant's legal name, the registrant ID (often an ABN or ACN) and the contacts^[2]. Look up your own domain, and a few of the designer's past client sites. Ask for your business as registrant and the designer as tech contact. auDA's WHOIS policy lists the tech contact as a separate role and says it can be a web designer^[11].

• Designer as registrant

  example-studio.com.au

  WHOIS result

  Registrant

  Example Web Co Pty Ltdthe designer

  Registrant ID

  The designer's ABN

  Tech contact

  Example Web Co

  A transfer needs the designer to ask for it

• Your business as registrant

  example-studio.com.au

  WHOIS result

  Registrant

  Example Studio Pty Ltd

  Registrant ID

  Your ABN

  Tech contact

  Example Web Coyour web designer

  The arrangement to ask for

The hosting account deserves the same care. No rule requires it, but ask for the hosting and domain logins to be in your business's name, or at least shared with you. Then moving the site later does not need anyone's permission.

The design, code and words need their own agreement

Copyright in what the designer makes is a separate question from the domain. Paying the invoice does not, by default, hand it to you.

As a general rule in Australia, the author of a commissioned work owns its copyright. There are some exceptions, such as photographs and portraits commissioned for private or domestic use. Ownership can be assigned in writing, and the default can be changed by agreement^[3]. One law firm says the developer will likely own the intellectual property in the design and typically transfers it once paid. The transfer should be in writing^[12].

So ask before you sign what you will own at the end: the design, the code and the words. Ask too which fonts, images and plugins sit under someone else's licence, and in whose name. If you will not own something outright, the contract should say what you can do with it.

What happens after launch, and how you leave

A site needs updates, fixes and hosting after it goes live. Ask who does each, what it costs each month, and how you cancel. The ASBFEO's case studies include a social media campaign that auto-renewed and billed a fourth month the business had not agreed to^[6].

The rules on contract terms tightened in 2023. Since 9 November that year, unfair terms in standard form contracts are illegal, and each unfair term is a separate breach with substantial penalties^[4]. The changes apply to contracts made or renewed on or after that date^[14].

Employees, the small business limit

1. Before 9 November 2023, a cap of20
2. Since 9 November 2023, fewer than100

A standard form contract is one prepared by one side and used many times, where the other side has little room to negotiate^[14]. WA's Small Business Development Corporation lists terms that may be unfair. Among them are one-sided termination or variation, liability caps that bind only one party, excluding your consumer guarantee rights, and automatic rollover nobody disclosed^[15]. A court or tribunal decides whether a term is unfair. Before it gets that far, you can negotiate the term out, decline to sign or get independent legal advice^[15].

If a project stalls anyway, the ASBFEO sets out five steps. Understand the dispute, talk to the other party and put it in writing. Then ask a third party such as a mediator, and go to court last^[5]. The Ombudsman responds to requests for help from small businesses in dispute with other businesses^[16]. Keeping every instruction and approval in email from the first day makes the third step easy.

Settle in writing before you pay

• WorkReal sites you can open, and a past client you can call [7]
• DatesStages, dates and what counts as finished, in writing [8] [9]
• DomainYour business recorded as registrant, the designer as tech contact [1] [11]
• CopyrightDesign, code and words assigned to you in writing [3] [12]
• After launchMonthly costs, renewal and how to cancel, stated plainly [14] [15]
• RecordsEvery instruction and approval kept in email [5]

With us, the site, the domain and the files are yours once the final payment clears.

See what a build includes