The acquisition has closed. The website is still running, and somebody has sent your IT team a spreadsheet of passwords.
Before you mark the domain handover complete, try one more thing:
Administer it without calling the seller:
- Can your team sign in with its own authentication methods?
- Receive a recovery message?
- Authorize a critical change?
A website can keep working for months while the buyer lacks the access needed to fix it when something breaks.
A Working Website Proves Very Little
Domain registration, DNS, and hosting are separate functions. They may sit with three different providers. Access to the website’s content management system tells you nothing about who can change its nameservers or renew its registration.
Suppose the founder registered the domain in a personal account. An agency manages DNS, and renewal charges go to a card the seller plans to cancel. The website looks exactly as it did before closing. Your first failed payment or DNS incident will make the unfinished handover considerably more interesting.
Start with an inventory of the domains included in the transaction. Include old brands, redirects, and domains used for email or customer logins. For each, record the registrar, DNS operator, renewal date, and the people who can authorize changes. Have the seller demonstrate each of the accounts involved.
Verify Control Before Signing Off
Give each handover item a named owner and a result someone can verify:
- Registration details. Confirm with the registrar which entity is recorded as the registrant and whether that remains appropriate after the transaction. A company acquisition does not always require a different registrant. Resolve any mismatch through the registrar’s verified process; possession of a password is not enough.
- Account access. Establish named administrators under the buyer’s control, with their own MFA. Check delegated users, active sessions, and API credentials. Where an agency’s account also holds unrelated clients’ domains, arrange a supported handover instead of taking over its entire account.
- DNS operations. Verify access to the provider serving the live records. Preserve the configuration and identify integrations that update it. A registrar transfer alone does not demonstrate control of a separate DNS account.
- Recovery and approvals. Replace obsolete recovery addresses, authentication methods, and approved support contacts. Confirm how the provider will verify the buyer’s requests. Use a recovery route that remains available if the acquired domain’s email fails.
- Billing and renewal. Confirm payment arrangements, renewal settings, and where notices go. Check separate DNS subscriptions too. Assign responsibility for acting on failed payments rather than assuming the finance integration will catch everything.
Here’s the process:
- Coordinate removal of the seller’s access with any agreed transition duties.
- Replace affected credentials in the systems that use them, verify operation, and revoke the old credentials.
- Keep a record of what remains temporarily authorized and when it ends.
There is no prize for changing the registrar, DNS provider, and hosting platform on closing day. The first thing you want to do is establish control. If a migration is needed, schedule it with configuration checks and a rollback plan. Ask providers about transfer restrictions and service dependencies before choosing the sequence.
Put the Acquired Domains Under Accountable Management
DomainSure’s services include multi-user role permissions, account recovery and lock-release security, DNS change notifications, and consolidated yearly billing. These help your team manage access, notice changes, and keep renewal responsibility visible after the handover.
Contact DomainSure’s sales team to request a free Domain Threat Assessment. Bring the acquisition’s domain inventory and ask us to review the remaining gaps in access and recovery. The useful question is whether your team can operate those domains after the seller stops answering the phone.
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