How do I change the ownership of an account or domain name?

You can change the ownership of an account by using our control panel to modify the “legal owner” contact to specify a new company, organization or individual.

Ownership changes can be made only if the previous owner agrees (in other words, even if someone knows the account password and makes the change in the control panel, it isn’t a legitimate change of ownership unless it was done with the previous owner’s consent). The new legal owner must also agree to be bound by all the terms and conditions in our Terms of Service.

If a change of ownership is attempted without the consent of the previous legal owner, or if the new legal owner doesn’t agree to our Terms of Service, the ownership change will be invalid (our Terms of Service has more details).

Some practical tips about changes of ownership:

  • The previous owner and new owner must put everything in writing between themselves. We don’t need to see this unless a dispute arises, but if it does, the new owner will need to provide us with a sales contract or other evidence that both parties agreed to the change.
  • If you’re turning over the account to someone else, change the account password to a temporary password at the same time you update the owner in the control panel. That way you won’t have to tell the new owner your real password. (If the domain name you’re changing is grouped in an account with others that you aren’t changing, you’ll need to split the domain name into its own account first.)
  • If you’re the previous owner and you have a credit card on file with us, and you want to make sure your card isn’t charged in the future even if the new owner fails to provide a new credit card number, you should remove your credit card from the account.
  • If you have historical data such as email messages that you have deleted from the live account, but which you also need to make sure the new owner cannot restore from a backup, you can contact us to disable access to backups from before the ownership change.