What happens if my web designer stops trading? The site keeps running, right up to the first bill nobody pays
The usual assumption is that when a web designer goes out of business, the website goes with them that week. It almost never does. On 13 September I went back through 236 real UK trade websites off my own lead sheets and read the "website by" credit in each footer. 35 named their designer, and for four of those designers the trail has gone cold: one company is in liquidation, one was dissolved in 2024, one let its own domain lapse, and one website now reads, in full, "Nothing to see here."
All five trade websites those four built were still live on the day.
That is the danger, not the reassurance. A site outlives its designer by months or years, because nothing breaks until a renewal falls due and the invoice goes to an inbox nobody reads. By the time a customer sees a blank page, the question of who owns what has stopped being a phone call and become a letter to a liquidator, the Crown or a registrar.
Usually nothing, at first. The site keeps running until the next hosting or domain renewal goes unpaid. What you lose then depends on whose name each layer is in: a domain registered to you is safe, while one held by a dissolved company belongs to the Crown under UK company law. A lapsed .uk domain stops working 30 days after expiry and anyone can register it after 95.
Five live trade sites, four designers whose trail has gone cold
Of 188 readable UK trade homepages checked on 13 September 2026, 35 carried a readable designer credit naming 32 different designers. For four of those designers the public trail has gone cold, and all five trade sites they are credited on were still online.
| What the public record shows | The designer's own website | Client sites still live |
|---|---|---|
| Limited company in creditors' voluntary liquidation since 24 April 2025 | Forwards to a different agency | 1 |
| Limited company dissolved 18 June 2024 | A hosting company's default page | 1 |
| Designer's own domain expired 23 July 2026 | Does not resolve | 1 |
| Nothing on Companies House to read | One line: "Nothing to see here." | 2 |
How it was done, and where it is thin. Each homepage was requested once and searched for a credit line such as "website by" or "designed by". Each designer's own site was then requested, the company number read off its footer where one was printed, and the name searched on Companies House. A match only counted where the exact name and the line of business agreed and something independent confirmed it: a printed company number, a matching town, or the designer's own domain having stopped working. Two designers could not be traced at all and are not counted as stopped, and a credit is not proof of who holds the logins today.
The bigger finding is the denominator. 153 of the 188 sites name nobody, so most trade owners could not tell you from their own footer who built their website.
The one that looks dead and is not
One credited Shropshire designer has a limited company of exactly the same name, in the same town, dissolved in 2018. Their website is live and still offering the service. A dissolved company is not the same as a stopped designer, which is why the status on its own proves nothing in either direction.
What you lose depends on whose name each layer is in
A trade website is four separate things with four separate owners: the domain, the hosting, the built files and the content. When the designer stops, each one survives or fails on the name it is registered in, not on what anybody agreed on the phone.
The domain
The one that matters most, because it carries your email, your Google Business Profile link and the address on the van. If it is registered to you or your company, a designer vanishing costs you a registrar login and nothing else. If it is registered to them, you are relying on a business that no longer exists to renew it.
The hosting
Usually the first thing to go, because it is usually the first bill. Hosting accounts are usually in the designer's name, paid monthly or yearly on their card, and a dead card takes the site offline at the next payment date whatever the domain record says.
The files and the content
Your photos, logo and the words you supplied are yours regardless, which is worth knowing when the designer is gone and nobody can send you anything. The built site itself depends on the contract. On a builder platform such as Wix or Squarespace there may be nothing to hand over at all, only an account to take control of. Keep your own copies either way.
If the designer was a limited company, check Companies House first
Companies House is free, takes about ten minutes, and tells you which of three very different situations you are in: an active company that has gone quiet, a company in liquidation with a named practitioner, or a dissolved company whose assets have passed to the Crown.
Liquidation, dissolution and a sole trader who just stops
These are three different legal positions with three different people to contact, and a tradesman who treats them as the same problem will spend weeks writing to someone with no power to help.
The company is in liquidation
The Insolvency Service describes a liquidator's job as securing and realising the company's assets for its creditors. If the domain or hosting account sits in the company's name, the liquidator is the person who can deal with it. Write to the practitioner named on Companies House, give the domain and your trading name, and ask for it to be transferred or renewed before the expiry date. If the company also owes you money, GOV.UK's creditor guidance applies, with a Proof of Debt form for claims over £1,000.
The company has been dissolved
The hardest of the three. Section 1012 of the Companies Act 2006 says that when a company is dissolved, all property and rights it held are deemed bona vacantia and belong to the Crown. In England and Wales that is handled by the Government Legal Department. A court application to restore the company can be made by, among others, anyone who would have been in a contract with it, usually within six years of dissolution. Whether that is worth doing for a domain is a solicitor's question, and often the honest answer is to let it go and rebuild.
The designer was a sole trader
No record, no event, nothing to search. The accounts stay in a personal name and simply stop being paid. The only practical check is the one you can run on your own domain: who the registrar is, and when it expires.
The domain clock runs 30, 90 and 95 days
Under Nominet's published expiry process, a .uk domain keeps working for 30 days after it expires, stops resolving from day 30 but can still be renewed until day 90, cannot be renewed from day 90, and drops for anyone to register after day 95.
The audit caught that clock running. One credited designer's own .co.uk expired on 23 July 2026 and, 52 days later, no longer resolves: exactly the stretch where it has gone dark but can still be renewed. The client site they built lives on Squarespace, so it is still up. Separately, one of the five client domains falls due for renewal on 3 October 2026, three weeks after the check. Whether that renewal reaches anyone depends on whose account it is in, and the public record does not say.
If your site has already gone blank and you are not sure this is the reason, the two-minute triage for a trade website that is down tells a lapsed domain apart from a lapsed subscription or a host fault before you write to anyone.
What to sort this week, while they still answer
Every problem in this post is cheap to prevent while the designer is trading and expensive once they are not, so the time to move the domain into your own name is when nobody is annoyed with anybody.
Three requests, one email: the domain registered to you or your company, the registrar account email changed to one you read, and a copy of the site files and your photos. A designer who is doing well will not mind. One who stalls has told you something useful. If you would rather leave now than wait to find out, the published exit terms of six UK providers are compared in how to cancel a website contract in the UK.
Bottom line. A web designer stopping trading is rarely what takes a trade website down. The first renewal after they stop is, and whether you survive it was decided by whose name went on the registration years ago.
The same question, asked of me
I am a sole trader too, so this post applies to Sitework as much as anyone, and the honest answer is in the published terms rather than in a promise.
For the first twelve months, the domain and hosting sit in accounts I run, because that is how £50 every four weeks with no build fee pays for the build. Your logo, text and photos stay yours throughout. After twelve continuous months the website files and the domain transfer to you, and you can keep the site whether or not you carry on paying. Cancel inside those twelve months and the hosted site comes offline unless we agree a handover, which the terms say plainly. After the transfer, a business like mine stopping cannot take your address with it.
If you are choosing who builds the next one, the questions worth asking any of us are in how to choose a website designer for your trade, and an example of what I build is on the driveway and patio website page.