The Contract, Ownership, and What If It Goes Wrong
An honest look at what belongs in the contract, who owns the code and content after handover, and what to do if the site breaks or the build runs late.
Most of the fear around ordering a website does not come from the price. It comes from uncertainty: what exactly am I buying, whose is it afterwards, and what happens if something goes wrong. This guide answers all four questions without sugar-coating.
What does a contract for website development include?
A serious website contract is a document, not an email thread, and it states precisely the following:
- Scope of work: how many pages, which features, what is included and what costs extra.
- A fixed price: a number you can rely on before signing, not a "from–to" range. See the pricing page for concrete packages.
- Deadlines: the planned start and the planned handover.
- Ownership after handover: who owns the domain, hosting, code and content (more on this below).
- Who the provider is: the name, matična številka (company registration number) and davčna številka (tax number) of a registered company, not just a brand name. For us that is Računalničar, Sebastijan Bandur s.p., a real invoice and someone who answers for the result.
Honestly: smaller providers often simplify the contract to a single page, because there are no dozens of subcontractors and departments to coordinate. That is no less serious. It is less bureaucracy. What matters is that all five points above are in writing, regardless of the document's length. If someone offers you "quick collaboration without the paperwork", that is not a gesture of trust. It is a reason for extra caution, because without a written agreement you have no basis for any of the above.
What should I know about owning the code and content after the site is built?
This is where most clients get caught later. Some providers keep control of the domain, hosting or code after handover, which means you are effectively renting your own website even though you paid for it in full.
At Segentic the rule is simple: everything is yours. At handover you receive:
- the domain, registered in your name,
- hosting on your own Cloudflare account (not ours),
- the complete source code repository,
- and, because we build with AI tools, the agent prompts the site was built with, delivered to your own Google Drive.
None of it stays with us as leverage. If a year from now you no longer want to work with us, you can hand the code and content to anyone, with no buy-out, no export from someone else's database, no loss of the domain. More at /en/you-own-everything/.
To show this is more than a slogan: the Jadmiral case study covers a rebuild from WordPress to Astro. The site became roughly 4× faster and the annual cost fell from €350 to €12. That was possible precisely because it was an open migration, not a locked system.
So when you negotiate the contract, ask directly: "If I leave in a year, do I walk away with the site or empty-handed?" The answer tells you everything. If the provider dodges or says "that never happens", that still does not answer who actually holds the keys.
What should I do if the website does not work properly after it is built?
Start by checking why something is not working. On classic sites (WordPress and the like) the most common cause is a corrupted database or a plugin that stopped working after an update: chains of dependencies that someone has to maintain constantly.
Our sites have practically none of this category of problems: without a database and without plugins there is nothing to break into and nothing to keep updating. Hosting on Cloudflare's edge network also means fewer single points of failure than one server. More at /en/why-cloudflare/.
If something does break anyway, the first step is simple: write to the provider and describe exactly what is happening (which page, which device, what you expected). Because the code base is small and has no hidden dependencies, a fault is usually easier to find and fix than in a system with hundreds of plugins. Whoever built your site should also be able to tell you why something happened, not only that they will "fix it".
What should I do if the agency does not finish the project on time?
Delays are the most common cause of disputes between client and provider, and they usually come from the same source: the contract had no clear deadline, or only an approximate one.
If the deadline is already slipping, do this:
- Go back to the contract. If the deadline was agreed in writing, you have grounds to demand an explanation, or to invoke penalty clauses if any were agreed.
- Ask for an interim deliverable, not just a promise. A serious provider can show at any time what has actually been done, not merely that "work is in progress".
- Check responsiveness. Someone who replied the same day before signing and goes silent for weeks after signing is showing a pattern, not an exception.
That is why we keep one simple rule you can verify before signing: we reply to an enquiry the same working day, and you get a quote within 48 hours. The same responsiveness applies during the build. If something gets complicated, you hear about it immediately, not at the deadline.
If you are looking for a provider where everything, contract, ownership and responsiveness, is clear before you sign, write to us. You get a reply the same working day and a concrete quote within 48 hours.