After Being Fired from the Family Business She Helped Build, Woman Refuses to Hand Over the Website

NEED TO KNOW

• A woman was fired from her “adopted parents’” family business after eight years of hard work

• When they demanded she transfer the complex website she had built, she refused, offering instead to let them copy it and take the domain

• Now, she’s wondering if she’s wrong for standing her ground

A woman sought advice from the Reddit community after she was fired from her family’s business and refused to transfer the company’s website that she had built and maintained for years.

The woman explained in her post that the situation had “a very involved history” that stretched back more than a decade. “I met my ‘adopted parents’ when I was 19yo and they really took me in and helped ‘raise’ me as a young adult,” she wrote.

When they decided to start a company eight years ago, she helped them build it “from the ground up,” taking care of everything from licensing and insurance to marketing and technical logistics.

She said she also built a “very extensive website for the company on my own time” as she had already started her own small freelance marketing company. Over the years, that website became a major part of the business’s success and a key example of her professional skills.

As the business grew, the woman’s role deepened. “I began working from home solely for the family business,” she shared. Her responsibilities included handling all customer correspondence, scheduling, managing insurance and licensing, and overseeing crews and payments.

Even though she was officially paid for three days a week, she said the workload was full time. “I was often working until 3 or sometimes even 5am including on my days ‘off’ and was always ‘on call,’” she wrote.

Her husband joined the company six years ago, working long hours as a foreman and project estimator. “He would be scheduled for appointments 2-3 days/week sometimes driving 300 miles in one day,” she said, adding that his other days were spent leading crews at job sites often far from home.

Both of them were using their own vehicles, phones, and tools for work, with no reimbursements. “All business expenses were covered individually,” she explained, noting that even mistakes made by other workers would be deducted from her husband’s paycheck.

Things began to unravel six months before she posted the story. Her “adopted parents” called her in for a meeting, supposedly to discuss her husband’s performance. “Keep in mind, I was his direct manager and took that role very seriously,” she wrote. While her husband had some early issues, she said he had improved and was “great at his job but severely overworked.”

During that meeting, the couple’s employers told her that her husband “would never find another job that would keep him around and have him making what he does.” When she replied that they didn’t pay as well as they thought they did, the reaction was immediate.

“They were offended beyond belief that I would even suggest that,” she wrote. “They let me know that Friday would be my last day and good luck ‘finding anyone else who will pay you what we do to stay home with your children.’”

She said her husband was given a 30 day termination notice shortly after. Despite the tension, she says she tried to leave on good terms. “I did try to get them to extend the time a week or more to be able to train the people replacing me well enough,” she said. “But they were adamant that I didn’t actually do all that much and none of it was hard.”

Still, she spent the rest of her week creating “informational data sheets” to make the transition smooth and continued answering their questions in the weeks that followed. But outside of those work-related interactions, she said, “the whole family have now cut us off entirely.”

The real conflict began when her former employers asked her to transfer ownership of the business’s website to their eldest son. The woman explained that the website had always been her creation, something she maintained “on my own time and dime as a way to sow into my ‘adopted parents’ and the company.” Even after being fired, she had agreed to keep maintaining it.

Now, however, she was focused on rebuilding her freelance marketing business. “If I transferred this site from my LLC at this point, it would be a MASSIVE hit to my own business,” she said. The website, she explained, was “a beautiful representation of my abilities and the only one on my portfolio like it.”

To compromise, she offered to make the process easier. “I explained to the owner that I can leave the website up for their son to copy/paste everything over but he would just need to re-build it on his end as I can’t duplicate it,” she wrote. She even said she would transfer the domain name, which she valued at more than $1,000, to help them.

Despite the generous offer, her former employers were furious. “They are incredibly upset with the idea though because the son doesn’t know how to do all of that,” she said.

She even offered to teach them how to manage the site, but they refused. “Of course they don’t want to do that because they operate the business out of their home and I’m no longer welcome there,” she added.

The woman said she felt torn. “I don’t want to make things difficult for them and do feel I’m being more than fair by the options I’ve given,” she admitted. But she still wondered if she was wrong for not handing it over completely. “Maybe I need to just transfer it over and accept the loss,” she wrote.

Commenters on Reddit were quick to support her. One wrote, “NTA. You’re being too kind to people who let you go without a second thought for you. You’re offering so much of yourself and your time to people who don’t care about you.” That commenter said her offer was “reasonable” and that her former family should be “grateful instead of making all these demands.”

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Another commenter was even more direct. “OP needs to go no contact,” they said. “A complex and well-designed website is worth thousands of dollars to design… never mind maintain. The domain? OP paid for it and didn’t get reimbursed? It’s hers.”

That person urged her to bill the company for all the costs associated with the website. “If the company wants it back then send them the invoice for ALL related costs. Paid up front in full or tell them to piss off,” the commenter wrote. “Your skills are worth time and money and you need to charge accordingly. No more freebies.”

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