I am not an attorney so if you need legal advice please contact an attorney. The following tips are based on experience and specific situations. Note: this article does not address what to do if someone else owns your domain. Often people contact me who are in a contract but they want to get out of it. WordPress Maintenance Contracts are similar to any other contract so the law applies in the same way. The most important thing to consider is the actual document you signed AND if either party’s status has changed? in other words, is there a breach of contract?
Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Contract
Do you have any rights to the website at all? Ideally your agreement should state that YOU are the owner of the website. If it doesn’t make that clear you might have some major challenges.
Is the WordPress Maintenance Provider communicating with you? This is the best situation regarless of your legal position. If you have clear communication then you can probably either negotiate or at least request access to your website.
Is the contract legally enforceable? Is there anything in the contract that would render it null and void? Examples of this might be something that goes against state law or an unreasonable requirement.
Is there a breach of contract? If you have failed to keep up your side of the agreement then there is little a new maintenance provider can do for you. First you have to make the other party whole OR negotiate with them to terminate your agreement. If the other part is in breach of contract then you could use that against them. Do you have clear proof that they failed to uphold their side of the agreement? If so, you could stop paying them (of course you should talk to an attorney about this).
Are you better off completing the terms of the contract? One option is to move your website to another provider but still pay the other WordPress Maintenance Provider in full.
How to Gain Control Over Your WordPress Website
If you have the right to take over your website there are several ways you can do that. Maybe you are going to keep paying until the contract period is over. Maybe you have legal standing and can stop making payments and no one will come after you because they failed to meet their obligations.
SITUATION 1: You Have Administrator Level Access to the Website
You can either add a user for your new maintenance provider or export the website using a backup plugin or transfer the website to a new hosting provider using a plugin. Be sure to delete the user(s) you don’t want to have access to your website.
SITUATION 2: You Don’t Have Access but You Control the Web Hosting
If you control the web hosting there are many approaches you can take but the simplest is to add a new User to WordPress using the database (usually phpMyAdmin). Then you are in Situation 1 Above. From there you can delete the user(s) associated with the maintenance company.
What if You have No Access to the Website and No Access to the Hosting?
- If your current provider is responsive to your phone or emails, contact your provider directly and communicate with them
- If you can’t get a response, ask an attorney to contact them in writing. This should be enough if you are in a good position in terms of the contract.
- If you don’t want to hire an attorney, one option on a smaller website is to rebuild it. This sounds like a big chore but if your website is already 5 years old it might be time to do that. The challenge is if you have tons of content to transfer over manually.
- If you can live with not having a WordPress website you can even convert it to HTML using tools available on the web. Typically this would mean losing many capabilities that WordPress provides such as a blogging platform, custom post types and much more.
Want a Better WordPress Maintenance Plan?
In an upcoming article we will write about What to Look for in a WordPress Maintenance Plan. In the meantime look for someone who is reputable. For example WPTechGuru doesn’t require a contract AND has a no haggle policy. If you want a domain back in your control.. no problem! If you want your website moved to a new provider.. no problem! We make things easy and treat you with respect.