In short
- Online accounts don’t transfer automatically when a business is sold. Each one has to be moved, in the way that provider allows.
- Many are held in a personal name: the owner’s, a former member of staff’s, or a web designer’s. Find out early.
- Start at least a month before completion. Some transfers and recoveries take weeks.
- Never hand over passwords by email. Add the buyer as a user wherever you can.
Why it doesn’t happen by itself
When a limited company is sold as a whole (a share sale), the company keeps its accounts, but they may still be tied to people who are leaving. When the business is sold as an asset sale, nothing transfers until someone moves it, and the sale agreement usually just says “goodwill” or “intellectual property” without listing the accounts.
Either way, a provider such as Google or Meta doesn’t read your sale agreement. It only knows who is named on the account and who can log in. That’s what has to change.
Make a list of every account
Most small businesses have more than they think. Check for:
- domain names, including old ones and spelling variations that forward to the main website
- website hosting, and the website’s own admin login
- email: the mailboxes, and the service they run on
- Google Business Profile, Tripadvisor and other listings
- Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and any other social media
- booking, ordering and payment systems
- newsletter and mailing list services
- subscriptions that renew automatically, and which card pays for them
Searching your inbox for “renewal”, “invoice” and “your account” is a quick way to find the ones you’ve forgotten. Our free health check shows who holds your domain and when it renews.
Check whose name each one is in
For every account, write down who the provider would treat as the owner, which email address it’s registered to, and who can log in today. Common problems:
- the domain name is in the web designer’s account, or in the name of someone who has left
- the Facebook Page is run from one person’s personal profile
- two-step verification codes go to an old mobile number
- an account is paid for on a personal card
Fix these before the sale, while the people involved are still easy to reach. Recovering an account from someone who won’t or can’t help can take weeks.
Decide how each account moves
There are usually three possibilities:
- Transfer it. Most domain names, Google Business Profiles and Facebook Pages can be passed to the buyer using the provider’s own tools. See our guides to transferring a domain name, Facebook and Instagram and Google Business Profile.
- Hand over the login. Some accounts can’t change owner, so the buyer takes over the login and changes the password, email address and two-step verification on completion day.
- Close it and start again. Payment and card accounts usually can’t be transferred in an asset sale. The buyer opens their own, and you close yours once everything has switched over.
Personal data, such as mailing lists
Customer lists, mailboxes and booking records contain personal information, so passing them to the buyer is a data protection question as well as a practical one. Whether you can, and what customers need to be told, is something to agree with your solicitor before anything moves. The Information Commissioner’s Office has guidance on data protection for businesses.
When to do what
- As soon as you decide to sell: make the list, check whose name everything is in, and fix anything in the wrong hands.
- Before completion: agree what moves, how and when. Add the buyer as a user where you can, with limited access until the sale completes.
- On completion day: switch ownership, logins and recovery details over, once your solicitor confirms the sale has completed.
- Afterwards: check a few weeks later that renewals, emails and two-step codes are all going to the buyer.
Providers change their settings and menus from time to time. If a step doesn’t match what you see, check the provider’s own help pages, or ask us.