---
title: Handing over ownership
summary: The owner can hand an organization to another person from the team; the new owner takes the money and the rights, and the previous owner stays in the organization with a role they choose or leaves it.
tools: []
related: [team-and-roles, organisation-business-branch, deleting-account-and-organisation]
search: [change owner, transfer account]
---

# Handing over ownership

An organization has an owner, and only the owner makes someone else the owner.
Ownership is handed over on the web, after signing in again. It is not available
in the app or over MCP.

## How to hand it over

1. Open **People and invitations**, press **…** in your own row and choose **Hand
   over ownership…**. The link of the letter **We didn't delete your account**
   opens the same window.
2. Choose **To whom**: a person from the team of the open business, except
   yourself.
3. Choose **You stay as**: one of the roles of the organization, or **Leave the
   organization**. Nothing is chosen beforehand, and **Hand over ownership** cannot
   be pressed until you choose.
4. Read the consequences and confirm. If the last sign-in was more than 10 minutes
   ago, Talemo asks to sign in once more and returns to the window.

The new owner is not asked for consent. If the organization has no role besides
the Owner yet, you cannot stay in it, only leave: the role to stay with has to be
created beforehand (see [Team and roles](team-and-roles.md)).

## What changes

The new owner can close and restore businesses, change the money and the rights of
the team. Emails about the money of the businesses start coming to the new owner
(see [Letters about money](../money/letters-about-money.md)), and the new owner
gets the letter **You're the owner now** with the name of the previous owner and
the time.

The previous owner stays in the organization with the chosen role, and it works in
all businesses of the organization. If the previous owner left the organization,
access to its businesses is lost, and the new owner can invite them again.

If the previous owner left, the access keys they issued for those businesses stop
working, the programs they connected are disconnected, and the invitations they sent
that nobody has answered yet are closed. If the new owner invites them again, the old
keys and programs do not come back: keys are issued and programs connected anew.

The data of the businesses does not change.

## Giving it back

Only the new owner can give ownership back, by handing it over in the same way.
The letter **You're the owner now** says where to find it.

## Why it matters for deleting an account

The only owner of an organization with an open business cannot delete their
account. Handing the organization to another person lifts that obstacle (see
[Deleting an account and an organization](deleting-account-and-organisation.md)).