Buyer Guide · Nigeria
Who Should Own Your Domain, Email and Admin Accounts?
Your company should. The domain, the registrar account, hosting, email admin and website admin should all be in the company’s name, with owner access held by a director. Your IT person or agency should have their own access to do the work, on a list you keep, but never be the only one who can get in.
As of October 2026, by the Inventrium (IBSS) team, Lagos
The accounts your company must own
| Account | What it controls | What goes wrong if someone else owns it |
|---|---|---|
| Domain registrar | Your domain name and its renewal | The domain lapses or is held back, and website and email stop together |
| DNS | Where your website and email point | Mail can be redirected without anyone in the company noticing |
| Email admin | Every mailbox, password reset and leaver’s mail | You cannot recover a staff member’s mail or close their access |
| Hosting | The server your website runs on, and its backups | A billing dispute with one person can take the site offline |
| Website admin | Content, users and plugins | You depend on one person for every change |
| Social and ad accounts | Your pages, followers and ad spend | Pages and ad history are lost when a staff member or agency leaves |
Questions to ask your IT person or agency
- Which registrar holds our domain, and whose name and email is it registered to?
- Who has owner access to our DNS, hosting, email and website, and can we see the list?
- When does the domain renew, and whose card pays for it?
- Is multi-factor sign-in on for every admin account?
- Where are our backups kept, and when were they last restored as a test?
- If we part ways, what do you hand over, and how quickly?
A good provider answers these by email without fuss. If they hesitate on question 1 or 6, act now, while the relationship is still good.
How to take back control without a fight
- Open company-owned accounts at the registrar and host, using a company email address.
- Ask your provider to transfer each asset into those accounts, one at a time, with a date.
- Then give your provider their own admin access, and the work carries on.
- Record every account, its owner and its renewal date in one document a director keeps.
Frequently asked questions
The company. The domain should be registered in the company’s name, with a company email address as the contact and the registrar login held by a director. Your IT person or agency can have their own access to manage it, but not be the owner.
It can be. Whoever holds the registrar account controls your website and your email. Most designers will transfer it if you ask politely, and early. Ask for the registrar name and a transfer to an account in the company’s name. Then ask them to confirm by email once it is done.
Ask for a list of every account they manage for you: domain registrar, DNS, hosting, email admin, website admin, social media and ad accounts. For each, ask who the owner is, whose email it is registered to, and whether multi-factor sign-in is on.
A free check by Inventrium. You send your domain and we look at who holds it, where your email and website are hosted and how your mail is protected, then send a 2-page note on what to fix first. There is no obligation to buy anything.
No. Any good provider will hand you a list of the accounts they hold for you when you ask. You don’t need their personal passwords. You need owner access in the company’s name.
Find out who holds your accounts today
Send us your domain. We’ll check who holds it, where your email and website are hosted and how your mail is protected, and send a free 2-page note on what to fix first.