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Hello, not sure if this question has been asked before, it’s quite urgent. I’ve been asked to update a company’s WP website for my friends and they tell me that the person who created the website for them before is not responding. The person has the wp admin passwords and the host passwords. Is there a way to retrieve the access without this guy? The company is a jewellery store that they own and the domain name has the same name.
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Can you gain access to either the hosting account or wp-admin? Can you reset anything in order to gain access to either of these?
I the answer is no to the above, then no you can’t.
Same applies for the domain although you can’t actually edit the WordPress website with this access, you can just point it elsewhere which doesn’t really solve the problem.
You might need to get a business lawyer involved but in the past I’ve had luck contacting the hosting company and explaining the situation, and ask them what their resolution policies are. I mean, it’s not an uncommon problem and most of the better hosting companies will have policies for it. Your client will usually have to submit printed, possibly original information showing that they own the domain, own the brick-and-mortar company, and (ideally) that they contracted with the previous developer to build or maintain the site.
But this sort of non-performance and lockout thing (online and in real life) is something business lawyers deal with surprisingly often. Often just by sending a letter to the right people.
If bad comes to worse, at least they own the domain. It’s usually pretty easy to rebuild a site if the original is still online. (A live site is sort of the ultimate design document.)
Speak to the host, prove who the company are, and that it’s their account and you’ll gain access.
Then, ensure all domains, hosting accounts and licenses are in the company name and you shouldn’t have these issues going forward.