At first he replied within two hours. Then within two days. Now it has been five weeks, the last message shows as read and the phone rings into nothing. The website is still up, so nobody outside notices, and that is exactly why nothing gets done about it.
This article is a procedure, not a discussion. It is written for the moment when you need to know what to do this afternoon and in what order. The order matters more than the speed: most companies start by chasing the source code, and that is the least urgent item on the whole list.
Short answer
- The domain is the only thing you can lose for good. Deal with it first, before the code and before the login details.
- Who holds the domain and how long it is paid for takes a minute to check in the public registry. For Czech domains that is nic.cz.
- If you are the registered holder, you can move the domain without your supplier. CZ.NIC issues the transfer password to the holder directly.
- Source code and the database cannot be obtained without his cooperation. You may well have a legal claim to them; access is another matter.
- Your customers' personal data is yours. The supplier is a processor and must hand it over or delete it on your instruction.
- Before you plan a handover, check the invoices. A common reason for silence is not bad faith but an unpaid invoice sitting in somebody's drawer at your end.
The first hour: four things you can check yourself
None of this needs the supplier or anybody technical. A browser and ten minutes per item will do.
- 1Open the public domain registry and look up your domain. Three things matter and everything else rests on them: who the holder is, who the registrar is, and how long the registration is paid for. The holder is the owner. The registrar is only the company the domain is managed through, and that can be changed.
- 2Find out where the domain points. Free tools will show the DNS records: the A record says which server the site runs on, the MX record says where your email runs. Company email on the domain is the part people forget to ask about when they part ways with a supplier, and losing it hurts more than losing the site.
- 3Check that you can log in to the admin area and that the password reset reaches your inbox. If the reset email goes to the supplier, you do not have access, you have the impression of access.
- 4Go through the invoices and the contract. You are looking for two things: whether you owe anything, and what exactly was ordered. Wording along the lines of “creation of a website” with not a word about source code and data is the most common and unfortunately the weakest.
Protective period after a .cz domain expires
- Domain works, renewal possible50%30 days
- Domain out of the zone, site and email down50%30 days
Total 60 days
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Domain works, renewal possible | 30 days |
| Domain out of the zone, site and email down | 30 days |
What you can get without the supplier and what you cannot
The table is ordered by urgency, not by what people fear most. The source code, which is what makes most companies call a lawyer first, is only halfway down.
| What you need | Possible without him? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Domain where you are the holder | Yes | CZ.NIC issues the transfer password to the holder without the current registrar's involvement. Then it moves to a new one |
| Domain where the supplier is the holder | No | Changing the holder needs his consent. Without it you are left with a formal demand, a court, or CZ.NIC arbitration |
| Company email on the domain | Yes, with an outage | New MX records are set once the domain moves. Old messages stored on somebody else's server do not come with it |
| Hosting and server | Depends on the contract | If the contract is in your name, the provider will deal with you. If it is in his, they must not deal with you at all |
| Source code | No | The code sits in his repository. You may have a claim to it; you will not get access without him |
| Database and customer records | Legally yes, practically no | You are the data controller and entitled to have it returned. That is enforced by a written demand, not by technology |
| Text and photos from the site | Yes | The public part of the site can be downloaded and missing pages are usually in the internet archive |
| Search history and analytics | Yes, but without the history | Search Console and your own measurement can be set up again by verifying the domain. Data in his account stays with him |
The domain: a route that works even against silence
Czech domains have one feature most companies do not know about, and it decides whether the situation is serious or merely annoying. The transfer password can be requested by the domain holder directly from CZ.NIC. No consent and no cooperation from the current registrar is required.
Verification depends on the contact details registered against the domain. If your own email is on it, you confirm the request from there. If the supplier's email is on it, the request can be confirmed with an officially certified signature, a qualified electronic signature or a Czech data box. The password is valid for fourteen days, so it helps to have the new registrar lined up first.
All of this only applies if you or your company are listed as the holder. If the supplier is listed there, the domain legally belongs to him and no technical route changes that. It is the most common and the most expensive mistake we see in this situation.
The domain is registered to the supplier because he “sorted it out as part of the website price”. After two months of silence the company found it had no right to talk to the registrar at all and had to go to a dispute. The domain expired in the meantime.
The domain is registered to the company with a company contact address. In one afternoon the password was requested, the domain moved to a new registrar, and the site and email were running on new servers within a week.
Who owns the code when the contract is silent
This is where most articles tell you that without a contract you have nothing. That is not true, and the difference matters quite a lot to you.
Czech copyright law has a special rule for software. A computer program created on commission is treated as an employee work and the client is treated as the employer, which means the economic rights are exercised by the client, that is by you. It only applies where the author is a natural person, in other words where your contract was directly with the programmer.
If a company delivered the site, the rule does not help. The rights stay with that company and you hold a licence to the extent that follows from the purpose of the contract. In practice you may run the site, but a claim to the source code and the right to modify it does not follow from that on its own.
The difference between those two sentences is worth hundreds of thousands of crowns a year and is decided by one clause in a contract. That is why we insist on it even on jobs where the client sees it as needless paperwork.
The honest part: sometimes the silence is an unpaid invoice
Before you plan a handover, check three things inside your own company. It sounds unpleasant and surprisingly often it is the whole explanation.
- Whether you owe him money. An invoice stuck in your approval process is two months overdue from the other side. A one person supplier reacts by stopping work, because otherwise he is working for free.
- Whether you are writing to the right address. Company addresses change, emails land in spam and a one person supplier rarely has cover. Try another channel: the phone, a data box, the address in the company register.
- Whether you are asking for something he never sold you. Free support that was tolerated for a year is not free support forever. We are on that other side ourselves and we know the pattern.
And then there is the opposite, equally real case: the supplier closed down, fell ill or died. With one person firms that is not a remote possibility, it just does not get talked about. If the domain is registered to a sole trader who has died, the transfer goes through probate and takes months. That is one more reason for the holder to be you.
Escalation: what to send and in what order
The aim is not a dispute. The aim is to get the access and the data, and agreement almost always gets there faster than a threat. So this route starts mild and hardens only if the other side does not respond.
- 1An email with a specific list and a deadline. Not “please send me the access details” but a numbered list: admin login, database export, source code, domain and hosting access, within seven days. A specific list can be fulfilled; a general request cannot.
- 2A reminder through another channel. Phone, text message, the company data box. It sounds trivial, but with one person suppliers it resolves most cases, because the email simply got lost.
- 3A written demand to the registered address, by recorded delivery or data box. This is where you first name what you are relying on: return of personal data under the GDPR and performance of the contract. From this point you have proof that you asked.
- 4In parallel, not afterwards, secure the domain. If you are the holder, request the password from CZ.NIC and move the domain to a registrar you trust. This step depends on nobody else and removes the worst risk from the situation.
- 5Build the site again on new technology from whatever you have. Content can be rescued from the live site and the archive, and page addresses can be preserved. A site that keeps running changes your negotiating position more than any legal letter.
- 6Only then a lawyer, a complaint to the data protection authority or a claim. It is the slowest and most expensive route and in practice it is used only for data that genuinely cannot be replaced.
A company that launches a replacement site during the dispute stops being a hostage. A company that waits for a reply stays one for exactly as long as the other side keeps quiet.
What taking over somebody else's site looks like
This is the part companies put off, because they assume a site cannot be rebuilt without the original supplier. It can, it just has to be done in a different order from a normal project.
- Content gets rescued first, not the design. Text, photos, downloadable documents and above all the list of every address people arrive at from search. That list is the most valuable thing on the old site, because without it you lose your positions.
- Then the domain and the email. Without them there is no point building anything, because there is nowhere to deploy it.
- The site is rebuilt, not repaired. Somebody else's code with no documentation and no access to its author costs more to take over than a new build costs. For a straightforward company website that is a matter of weeks.
- Page addresses are preserved and where that is impossible, a redirect map is written. This is the one part where saving money can do damage worth tens of thousands.
How we handle it
We do take over sites from other suppliers, and it is fair to say on what terms.
- We start with a domain check, not with a quote. Within an hour you know who the holder is, how long it is paid for and whether anything is about to break. We do this part even for a company that ends up having the site built elsewhere.
- We do not join your dispute. We are not lawyers and we will not argue with the other side. We deal with what can be done without them.
- Content is rescued first, including the address list and the redirects. Without that a new site would start again from zero in search.
- The domain, the code and the database are then yours and it is in the contract. There is no sense in leaving one dependency for another.
- You get every access, not just the admin area. Domain, hosting, repository, analytics. Even though it means you could leave us easily one day.
And the honest other side: if your site sits on a hosted platform with no export, we cannot move anything but the text and the images. Promises about moving a whole site with one click do not hold for anybody in that case.
Frequently asked questions
My web supplier is not responding. What should I do first?
Check the domain rather than chase the code. The public registry tells you who holds the domain, who the registrar is and how long it is paid for. The domain is the only thing you can lose for good, because after expiry a .cz domain has a 60 day protective period and is then deleted. Everything else can be dealt with later.
Can a domain be transferred without the supplier's cooperation?
For a .cz domain yes, provided you are the registered holder. CZ.NIC issues the transfer password to the holder; identity is confirmed by the email registered against the domain, by an officially certified signature, a qualified electronic signature or a Czech data box. The password is valid for fourteen days. If the supplier is the holder, it cannot be done without his consent and the route is a formal demand, a court or arbitration.
Am I entitled to the source code of my website?
It depends who built it. Under Czech copyright law a computer program created on commission is treated as an employee work with the client in the position of employer, so the economic rights are exercised by you. That only applies where the author was a person, in other words where the contract was directly with the programmer. Where a company delivered the site, the rights stay with that company and you hold a licence to the extent that follows from the purpose of the contract.
Can the supplier keep the customer database?
No. For personal data you are the controller and the supplier is a processor. Under Article 28 of the GDPR he must delete or return the data on your instruction once the service ends. It is enforced by a written demand with a deadline and ultimately by a complaint to the data protection authority. Nobody can force an immediate handover in practice, which is why a replacement is arranged in parallel.
What if the supplier closed down, fell ill or died?
With one person firms that is not a remote possibility. If the domain is registered to you it barely complicates matters: request the password from CZ.NIC and move the domain. If it is registered to a sole trader who has died, the transfer goes through probate and takes months. It is the strongest argument there is for being the holder yourself.
Can a site be taken over without the source code?
Yes, only it is not taken over, it is rebuilt. The content, photos, documents and above all the list of addresses people arrive at from search are rescued so they can be kept or redirected. For an ordinary company website that is a matter of weeks and it usually costs less than taking on undocumented code you cannot ask anybody about.
What does taking over a site from another supplier cost?
It depends what can be rescued. If the domain is in your name and the content is reachable, it is usually the price of a new site of that size plus the work on the redirect map. If the domain is in the supplier's name and the data is unreachable, it grows by the time spent negotiating, which cannot be estimated in advance.
Summary
- Deal with the domain first. It is the only thing you can lose for good, and one unpaid invoice is enough to do it.
- The holder, the registrar and the expiry date take a minute to look up in the public registry.
- If you are the holder, CZ.NIC issues the transfer password to you and nobody else needs to be involved.
- Code: with a contract directly with the programmer the economic rights are yours; with a company delivery they stay with the company.
- You are always entitled to your customers' personal data. It is enforced by a written demand, not by asking.
- Check first whether you owe him anything. Surprisingly often that is the whole explanation.
- A replacement site launched during the dispute is the cheapest step that depends on nobody else.
Need this sorted out this week
Send us the website address and one sentence about what happened. By the next day you will have who holds the domain, how long it is paid for, where the site and the email run and what can be rescued without the supplier. If the answer is that you should wait and send one email, we will tell you that too.
Sources
Checked in August 2026. Rules change, so check the current position for your own case.
- CZ.NIC support: transfer passwords and time limits for .cz domains
- Public registry of .cz domains, where the holder, registrar and expiry date can be checked
- Act No. 121/2000 Coll., the Czech Copyright Act, Section 58(7) and Section 61
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Article 28(3)(g)
This article describes a procedure, not legal advice. Where the amount is disputed or the domain is registered to the other side, an hour with an IT lawyer pays for itself before anything is sent.