What should you reclaim when an agency engagement ends?

The common advice is to ask for a handover pack in the last week of an engagement. That has the order backwards. A pack is a favour from a supplier who is leaving, and a UK practice is better served by a list it can mostly check for itself. Take a managing partner who serves notice on a Friday and finds on Monday that the Business Profile still lists the agency as its only owner. Google makes a new owner wait seven days before managing all features, so the practice has lost a week before it can act. That week was avoidable. What follows sorts every item a firm may want back by who can move it, and puts the asks in an order that does not rely on goodwill.

Sort the list by who can move each item

Every item on a reclaim list falls into one of three groups, and only the last needs the agency. The first group is what the firm can take for itself: owner roles on accounts created in its name, and the registrar login for its domain. The second is what the platform decides, such as the seven day wait on a Business Profile and what happens to shared settings when a link is removed. The third is what only the agency holds, which is where the contract matters. The ladder puts them in the order to ask.

The first four rungs need no agency at all

If the accounts were created in the firm's name, the firm does not need permission to take them back. Take the Business Profile first, because of the wait. Google's help page on transferring primary ownership says a new owner or manager must wait seven days before managing all features, so add the firm's own person as an owner at least a week before notice and promote them to primary owner once the page allows it.

For Google Ads, the firm removes the manager link from its own side. Google's steps for unlinking run through the Managers page under Access and security. The registrar login and the Analytics and Search Console owner roles are the same kind of check: find the firm's name in the owner seat. Our earlier guide to what to ask for before renewing works back from the notice date, which is also the cheapest time to find a gap in the owner seats.

What stays behind in the manager account

Unlinking keeps the firm's campaign history but can switch off anything that was shared from the agency's side. Google's page about unlinking accounts says the individual account does not lose its own campaign history. It also warns that remarketing lists built on the manager's shared tag stop populating, so ad groups targeting those lists and campaigns excluding them stop running. Conversion tracking shared across accounts is affected too.

This is the rung most firms never see coming, because nothing in the firm's own account shows where a list or a conversion action came from. It does not mean the work is lost, but it does mean the firm needs the definitions before the link ends. Ask for them as a list: each shared audience and conversion action, with the campaigns that depend on them. Then unlink only when thereplacement is ready to rebuild what stops.

Rungs 6 and 7: the files, and the keys

For exports and working files the contract decides, so ask for copies and for the terms. We take no position here on who owns what the agency made. That turns on the written terms, and the engagement letter is the first place to read it. The practical ask is for copies of the monthly reports, the keyword and audience lists, the ad copy and the working files behind the website, each opened and checked by the firm rather than accepted as a folder link.

Logins are the last rung and the easiest to forget. If the agency held passwords for the firm's tools, change every one after the handover lands. A password the agency has seen is no longer a secret the practice can vouch for, which is a risk a firm in a regulated sector will want to be able to close in writing.

If the agency refuses or goes quiet

Decide what the firm can do without the agency before deciding what to argue about. Work down the ladder. Anything on rungs 1 to 4 is the firm's own, so a refusal there means the roles were never set up in the firm's name, which is a different problem from an agency holding something back. For rungs 5 and 6, quote the request and the clause that governs it, then ask again once. After that the question is no longer about the handover and a solicitor should read the contract.

Our piece on whether it is cheaper to fix the agency or replace it shows the cost of a switch before it delivers anything. A handover that goes badly adds to that cost, which is one more reason to start the ladder early.

The ladder on a made-up Friday

Run the ladder once, in order, on a hypothetical practice, and the sequence explains itself. This is a made-up case, not a client. A ten-person accountancy practice plans to end its engagement at the end of the month. In the first week the office manager checks rungs 1 to 4 and finds the Business Profile and Search Console owned by the agency. She adds herself as an owner on both, which starts the wait on the profile. In the second week the managing partner sends the dated email. In the third, the agency's list arrives and names two shared audiences. Notice goes on the last Friday, with every owner seat already the practice's own and nothing left to argue about.

When not to unlink, and when not to ask

Do not unlink Google Ads until the firm knows what the link was carrying. If rung 5 turns up a shared audience that three campaigns use, the unlink switches those campaigns off the same day. Get the list and decide who rebuilds each item, then unlink on the day the replacement is ready.

Do not ask for what the firm cannot use, either. The agency's internal templates and its reporting software are its own tools, and a request for them signals an argument rather than a handover. There is also nothing to reclaim if the firm never held the owner seat: that is a negotiation, and the honest first step is to read the contract and then talk to us about the introduction process. For how we introduce accountancy practices, recruitment agencies, tax advisory and financial advice firms to one agency, see how we work.